THE UNDYING SOUL VOLUME II OF MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS OF ALEXANDER WILDER

CONTENTS:

Introduction Platonism and Neo-Platonism - The Undying Soul - The Creation a Genesis - Iamblichos, His Life and Times - The Last Words of Socrates - The Lost Atlantis - The Parable of Atlantis - Sequel to the Republic - Concerning Pleasure - Philebos - Genesis and Pre-Natal Life Religion and Philosophy - The Birth and Being of Things - Evil - Philosophy of the Zoroasters - Intellect and Spirituality - Memory - Phases of Love - Philosophic Morality - Philosophy Essential to Progress - Hebrew Scriptures Interpreted Astrologically - Evolution of the New Testament - First of the Gospels - The Apostle Paul Spirituality and Occultism - Spectator of the Mysteries - The Double - Matters of Fact and Fiction - Knowing and Foreknowing - Magic and Sorcery - The Mysteries - Seership - The Ethics of Work Psychology - Mind, Thought and Cerebration

- Cerebellum or Subjective Brain - Heredity and Its Limitations - Human Character - Psychology and Physiology - The Relative Character of the Sexes History - Economics of Health - Goethe - Henry Clay - Miscellanea from Gould's Notes and Queries Appendix - Alexander Wilder - His Life and Work, Robert A. Gunn, M.D.

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Introduction to Volume II This is a further collection of articles of Neo-Platonist and Eclectic Medical Doctor, Alexander Wilder. The first volume, "Later Platonists," contained 50 articles of Wilder's, with appendix, and this volume 39 articles, including a small book-length compilation of mostly historical Miscellanea from Wilder which appeared through many issues in S.C. and L.M. Gould's Miscellaneous Notes and Queries. At least a further volume of Wilder's known metaphysical and historical material could be prepared, and probably yet another volume of material that is beyond reach in the historical dust heap of lost and acid-paper destroyed periodicals of the time. Several volumes could doubtless be compiled from Wilder's medical writings, much of this too technical for general interest, and also a victim to out-dated research and science. Much of this latter material in the many medical publications he was editor, secretary, or compiler for is unsigned and so a matter of guesswork. Of note in the present volume (Appendix) for those interested in biography is a 30 page biography and obituary of Wilder by Dr. Robert A. Gunn in Leander Whipple's Metaphysical Magazine. Gunn was acquainted with Wilder for nearly 40 years, and was co-editor with him on Gunn's publication The Medical Tribune, based in New York City. It is not a completely accurate account but provides much information of which there is no other record. It provides much new information and some corrections to biographical material in the Introduction of Vol. I of this series. Gunn says Wilder was married for a period of time in his 30's while working on the New York Evening Post for 13 years. This was the only time of his life in which he was financially well-off, and he and his wife owned a house in a better part of the city. Upon separation, Wilder signed the house and all its property (except his books) over to his wife. Gunn also shows how Wilder was constantly imposed upon and appealed to for ghost-written articles, and projects no one else could seemingly do or was willing to. Also, he reveals that Wilder was in the process of

publishing a two volume work on Ancient Symbolism, etc. The first volume of 600 pages was already at the publishers, and he was interrupted in his work on the second volume by outside projects, and it was never completed, or if completed, never published. This outside interruption could possibly be when he was requested by a Resolution by the National Eclectic Medical Association in June, 1890 to write a comprehensive "History of Medicine." He accepted and it was a work of many years, resulting in his 946 page History of Medicine being published in 1901. Another of Wilder's works in the "dust heap of history," is his publication Journal of the American Akademe. Wilder was editor of the publication and Hiram K. Jones the president of the association: "In July, 1883, was organized the 'American Akademe' at Jacksonville. Dr. Jones was its President, and monthly meetings were held at his house for ten years. Its papers and transactions were published first in The Platonist and afterward in eight volumes of the Journal of the American Akademe. The papers were contributed by members, most of them residents of Jacksonville, and others living elsewhere. The number of enrolled members exceeded four hundred."* The Journal was originally published 10 times per year with about 36 pages per issue, and ran through eight volumes. Jacksonville, Illinois was a college town, containing Illinois College. Blavatsky in The Theosophist (Dec., 1883 supplement, p. 39) called the new group "something like a sister Association to our Society," Wilder being vice-president of the Theosophical Society at the time. Article II of the Association's Constitution states that "The purpose of this Association is to promote the knowledge of Philosophic Truth and to cooperate in the dissemination of such knowledge, with a view to the elevation of the mind from the sphere of the sensuous life into that of virtue and justice, and into communion with the diviner ideas and natures." Whether all of the Journal of the American Akademe's lead articles were first published in The Platonist I don't know, but it seems unlikely. Online I could not find any of the journals except a partial copy of several issues in a volume at Google books. Many of the pages are missing, apparently due to heavily acid paper and decay, and it is probably fortunate if many of the issues of the Journal have survived anywhere. While many of the articles may have been published in The Platonist, lead articles in the Journal also included a lengthy discussion of the subject by members of the Akademe, as in Wilder's paper "Philosophy and Ethics of the Zoroasters," in vol. 2, no. 2. -----------* "Tribute to Doctor Hiram K. Jones, the Representative Platonist of America," Metaphysical Magazine, vol. 18, April-June, 1905 ------------Wilder published dozens of articles in Leander Whipple's monthly Metaphysical Magazine, which ran through at least 23 volumes from Jan., 1895 through Dec., 1908. From at least vol. 18 through vol. 23, Wilder is listed as "Associate" along-side of editor Whipple. Whipple also published eight of Wilder's longer articles as pamphlets from his "Metaphysical Publishing Co." The Metaphysical Magazine went through several name changes, New Cycle, Intelligence, and Ideal Review, before returning to its original title each time. Google Books has had at least 22 of these 23 volumes online, and if Vol. 23 was actually the last issues published, then the publication ceased only 3 issues after

Wilder's death. Many of the authors, such as Franz Hartmann, were also regular contributors to Theosophical publications. To date, as well as Vol. I, Later Platonists of this series, and History of Medicine (from scans at internetarchive.org), I've made several compilations of Wilder series in Theosophical publications, and published them separately online at Scribd.com, and gutenberg.org (and wherever else they may turn up!) These include: - Later Platonists, Vol. I of "Miscellaneous Writings of Alexander Wilder." (2009) This is about 650 pp in hard copy of which only 20 were privately published, with a free digital edition on Scribd.com currently. It is a collection of 50 of Wilder's articles under six headings, with an Appendix of 6 items, including letters from H.P. Blavatsky, and biographical material, followed by a basic index. - Dialogues of Plato, which was a loose series of 10 articles on various Dialogues of Plato, published in The Word, vol. I., Oct., 1904 through Sept., 1905, and also 5 other Dialogues and relevant Wilder articles appearing elsewhere in The Word. - Egypt and the Egyptian Dynasties is a long series of 20 installments published in Katherine Tingley's Universal Brotherhood magazine, May 1899 through December, 1900. - History of Medicine, original edition, 1901, New England Eclectic Publishing Co., New Sharon, Maine. This is a 946 page volume with extensive index. It is sub-titled: "A Brief Outline of Medical History and sects of Physicians, from the Earliest Historic Period; with an Extended Account of the New Schools of the Healing Art in the Nineteenth Century, and Especially a History of the American Eclectic Practice of Medicine, Never Before Published." The first third to half of the book is a survey of medical practice from ancient times to the present, and the latter half of the book on the various Eclectic schools of medicine (Natural practices, herbal science, homeopathy, etc.) and their eventual losing battle with Allopathy. - The Republic of Plato This was serialized originally under the title "Man a City" in Harold Percival's The Word, vols. 4, 5, and 6, 1906 through 1908. - The Timaios of Plato This was serialized in The Word, vols. 2 and 3, Nov., 1905 through April, 1906 under the title "The Origin of Man and the Universe - Timaios." - Alphonse de Lamartine This is currently on Gutenberg.org. It was originally serialized in Tingley's Universal Brotherhood, Nov., 1898 through April, 1899. The impression I have from this series is that it was originally intended as a larger book, and then aborted, as it has a disproportionate amount of material devoted to Lemartine's early life. It's not up to Wilder's usual quality of writing. There are a series of early Wilder articles in latter issues of The Word, on physiology along strictly medical lines, most of which I don't judge of wide enough interest to reprint, although some sections are also highly speculative and philosophic. Editor Percival says the lectures were from "many years ago," and from lectures at a college "in the West," so must have been Syracuse Medical College, 1850-52, where he taught in his late 20's. Another effort Wilder was involved in was the forming of "The School of Philosophy" in New York city. In the June, 1899 issue of Metaphysical Magazine is a 5 page article concerning the school and report of its first two meetings. Its stated purpose was of "definite and continuous study and research in the prolific fields of Metaphysics, philosophy, occult wisdom and psychic phenomena." "A search for wisdom is the object of the School,"

wrote Corresponding Secretary, and Editor of the Metaphysical Magazine Leander Whipple. The School intended to secure a hall for meetings, establish a circulating Library and Reading Room, and publish some of its papers and proceedings. There were seventy initial members, with Floyd B. Wilson as President and Alexander Wilder as First VicePresident. The effort was relatively short-lived of a few years. Crediting all the long and short-term efforts in societies and publications Wilder was involved in would be a difficult task. Another such effort noted in the Meta. Mag. was as "first President of The AntiVaccination League." A curiosity is a Wilder article never appearing in William Judge's The Path. They both lived in the New York City area (Wilder in New Jersey) and must have met a number of times at Blavatsky's flat or meetings, and Wilder was vice-president of the Society. I can only surmise that there was a difference of temperament and approach to philosophy. Judge was not actually anti-scholar (how could one be with Blavatsky as a Teacher) but he also wrote that people read too many books, and even that the Bhagavad-gita was the only book that anyone actually needed. He also criticized Franz Hartmann in The Path for adding another book to what was already too many books. Wilder, on the other hand, was a scholar and prolific reader and scholarly article-writer. -----------An apparent error which appeared in the Vol. I Introduction is listing Wilder as a contributor to Jerome Anderson's Pacific Theosophist. He is not listed in this publication in the "Union Index of Theosophical Periodicals" published online by Campbell Research Library. ------------------------

PLATONISM AND NEO-PLATONISM

The Undying Soul - Alexander Wilder Death does not differ at all from Life, says Thales, the Ionian sage. Instead of extinction of being it is only another phase in the career, a changing of the scenery in the theater of activity, the opening of a new chapter in the book of life. We have no good cause to think of it with dread, or to regard it as a calamity entailed upon us by an unpropitious destiny. We should contemplate it instead as an entering upon another stage in our progress, like adult life supervening upon the period of adolescence. Children, led by admiration of the superior strength and freedom, often personate grown-up men and women, and represent in their play what they desire to become and accomplish when they themselves shall have attained to mature years. In like manner it is natural and proper for us to think upon what may be possible for ourselves when we shall pass beyond the present conditions of corporeal existence and perceive that we are still in full possession of life. We may, peradventure, gain perception of the true purpose of our career and

experience as superior to that of the beasts that perish. Immortality, let us bear in mind, is more than a mere continuing of external circumstances and consciousness; it is rather an awaking as out of sleep into the possessing of life in its nobler and more genuine quality. Hence the poet Euripides pertinently asks: Who knows whether in reality our living here is not actually itself death and our dying an advent into life? The philosopher Herakleitos, however, affirms more distinctly that we live the life here which is as death to the celestial beings, and that what to our view of things is death is, to their apprehension, the genuine living. Another sage illustrates this concept by an ingenious handling of certain words in his native Greek language. He remarks that the soma or body is the sema or receptacle in which the soul is entombed. Socrates is represented as discoursing with Theodoros upon the conditions of our life here in this wise: "Evil can never cease to exist; for there must always be something which is antagonistic to good. It can by no means, however, have a place in the Divine Nature, but must of necessity move and operate around this mortal nature and region. We ought, therefore, to endeavor to fly away hence as rapidly as we are able. This flying is the becoming like God so far as this is possible; and to become like a God is to become holy and just through wisdom." In the estimation of those who knew him best Sokrates was himself such a man the best, the wisest and most just of all that lived in his time. He is described to us as so regardful of what was due the Divinity as never to undertake anything without asking for guidance; so just as never to do even the very slightest injury to any one, while he conferred many and great benefits on all with whom he had any dealings; so temperate and chaste as not to indulge in any appetite or inclination at the expense of whatever was modest or becoming; so intuitive as never to err in judging of good or evil, or ever to need the help of others in order to discriminate aright. Thus he was able to discourse upon all manner of subjects and explain them with the greatest accuracy and to penetrate the minds of men so as to perceive the right moment for reproving wrong and for stimulating the love of virtue.* His discourse was sometimes serious and at other times gay and apparently frivolous, but he always had something in it which was improving. When he prayed he made the petition that the Divinity would give him those things which were good. In his association with others he strove constantly to promote their happiness.** ---------* "Virtue" is defined by Aristotle as "the highest activity of the soul that is living for the highest object in a perfect life." The Greek arete means moral excellence. * Xenophon: Memoirs of Sokrates, IV, viii. Plato: Phaedros, 147 ------------The last of his Conversations will always be memorable. The day had been set by the Eleven for the last in which he should live. The gravity of the event was exceeded by the sublimity of the topics embodied in the discourse. He was setting forth the great facts of human existence as they were contemplated by himself and what had been told by professed eye-witnesses. Hence, to the intelligent, the Phaidon will always be a sacred classic, the repertory of the profoundest knowledge, unfolding the scope, the aim and essential quality of life. It is hardly worth our while to be over-nice in regard to the entire genuineness of

these or other utterances which have been imputed to Sokrates. There was a practice among teachers in former times to ascribe their works to some honored individual or ideal personage, and many often interpolated their own glosses and sentiments into the discourses of others. The analects, parables and maxims of the Buddha, Zoroaster, Laotse and Kon-fu-tse have, doubtless, been subjected to such a process, and innumerable compilers wrought upon the Tablets of the Egyptian Hermes.* ------------* Iamblichos: Reply of Abammon to Porphyry, I, I. "Hermes (Thoth), the patron of literature, was rightly considered of old to be a god common to all the priests; and as he presides over the genuine superior knowledge pertaining to divine subjects, our predecessors were wont to ascribe to him their discourses of wisdom, and to name their works the Books of Hermes." -------------If, therefore, a similar course has been taken in the matter before us, it will not be remarkable. For Sokrates was the seer and utterer of oracles to whom Plato imputed the sublime lessons which he embodied in suitable form to be preserved and transmitted through subsequent ages. On the day that Sokrates was condemned the Sacred Ship had sailed to Delos with the solemn embassy to Apollo on board. It was an observance in commemoration of the deliverance by Theseus from the deplorable tribute to the Minotaur, and during its absence no condemned person might be put to death. Accordingly he remained thirty days in prison awaiting its return. The fatal period had come, and the ten Doomsmen of Athens with their notary promptly notified him of the event. His friends also hastened earlier than usual to be with him. They found him liberated from his fetters and sitting beside his wife. He was contemplating the agreeable sensation produced by the removing of the chain. Pleasure and pain succeeded to each other like day and night or the fabled brothers, the Dioskuri. They are wonderfully related, he remarked; they will not be present to a person at the same time, yet if he should pursue and attain the one he is always obliged to receive the other. On being asked in relation to his purpose in the composing of a hymn to Apollo and the versifying of several of Aesop's Fables he answered that he had only sought to obey perfectly the voice of his divine monitor. A dream had often visited him during his life in different forms, but always telling him to apply himself to the art of the Muses. He had understood it as encouraging him to the pursuit of philosophy, of which the Muses were the patrons; but since his imprisonment he had thought that popular music might be what was signified and that it would be safer for him not to go before he had made some poems. "I am to go today;" he added; "tell these things to Evenos, and bid him follow me as soon as he can." "He will not be at all willing to comply with your advice," replied Simmias, who had understood the message in its most literal terms. "Every one who engages in this study will be willing," said Sokrates; "only he will not commit violence upon himself, for this may not be done." This apparent paradox led to further discourse. Sokrates admitted that it was not easy to understand the doctrine of the Mysteries which represented the corporeal life as a kind of prison from which it is not lawful to break out. "It is well said," he added, "that the

Divine beings take care of us and that we belong to them; hence an individual ought not to take his own life before it is made necessary." The questioners then demanded why a wise man should desire to die and leave these best of masters. For this Sokrates replied that if he did not expect to go among other divine beings who are both wise and good and among departed men who are better than any here, it would be wrong for him not to be grieved at dying. "I can positively assert, however, if I can assert anything," said he, "that I am about to go among gods who are good masters, and I hope also, though I am not so certain of it, that I shall be with good men. There is something, I am sure, awaiting those who die, and it will be far better for the good than for the evil." He presently explained the nature of the death which the philosopher contemplates and desires. Every one understands that dying is the separating of soul and body; the philosopher is not anxious about the various pleasures as, for example, of eating and drinking, sex or the other corporeal delights. He will hold them as subordinate and inferior, and will endeavor in such matters to separate the soul from communion with the body. This to the generality of human beings will appear to be a life not worth the living, and he who is thus indifferent to such pleasures will be accounted as good as dead. In the acquiring of the genuine knowledge the body is an obstacle. It is virtually agnostic and its senses do not help us learn anything with accuracy. Even in these modern times the highest attainment of sensuous perception only indicates a great unknown, unthinkable Force which is neither cognized as intelligent nor even as intrinsically good. Evil, by its closer relations to the body, more or less contaminates the soul, and so holds to back from the full attaining of that truth to which we aspire. The necessary support of the body subjects us to innumerable hindrances; its disorders impede our progress; and it loads us down with longings, desires, fears, fancies and other absurdities. The body and its desires occasion to the country wars, seditions and angry controversies; for all wars arise from the greed for wealth and advantage and we are obliged to acquire riches because we are enslaved to its service. If it leaves us any leisure and opportunity which we apply to the consideration of any subject of high importance it obtrudes itself all the time into the midst of our researches and speculations, disturbing and confusing us so that we become more or less unable to apperceive the ulterior truth. It is plain, therefore, that if we are to know anything distinctly we must contemplate it by the soul apart by itself. If, accordingly, we hold back from intercourse or partnership with the body except what necessity requires, thus keeping free from its contamination, we shall then come nearest to actual knowing of the truth. The real purification* consists in the withdrawing of the soul as much as possible from the body, and in the accustoming of it to dwell, so far as it can, here and hereafter, alone by itself free from the enthralling of the external and sensuous life. ----------* The philosopher took this figure of speech from the preliminary rite at the Eleusinian Initiation. The candidates were required to undergo purification by a bath or baptism before being admitted to the Mystic Chamber to behold the Sacred Vision. -----------

Being thus purified we shall in all probability, when we are set free, be with others like ourselves, and shall of ourselves cognize in its entirety that which really is.* This is doubtless the fact, for they who are not pure do not attain perception of that which is pure. The true student of philosophy is conscious that this real knowing pertains to the eternal world, and to those only who live as citizens of that world. Such are not afraid or sorrowful at the coming of death, but are glad to go where they may hope for the fruition of what they had longed for throughout life, and for freedom from what was repugnant to them. The person who is grieved because he is about to die is not a lover of wisdom,** but only a lover of his own body, of riches, of honors or other sensuous delights. If such a person is brave he endures death when he must, but he regards it nevertheless as a calamity by means of which he may escape something which he regards as a greater evil. If he keeps his passions in subjection, or denies himself of various pleasures, it is for the sake of delight or advantage which he esteems more highly. Such virtue, the philosopher declared, is a mere shadow, which possesses neither substance nor genuineness. It is a mere trading of pleasures which are less esteemed for others that are more desired or a bartering of one kind of pain for another. On the other hand, true virtue subsists through wisdom. Indeed, it is disregardful whether pleasure or pain or some matter of fear or apprehension is included in the issue. Indeed, it is itself the real purification and initiation into the Sacred Rites.*** ---------*Plato: Phaedros, 58. "Essence - that which really is, without form, and intangible is visible only to intelligence which guides the soul, and around it the family of the true higher knowledge have this [the superior region] for their abode. As then, the mind of a deity is nourished by intelligence and pure knowledge, so the mind of the pure soul that is about to receive what properly belongs to it, is delighted when, after a long time, it sees that which is, and is nourished and thrives by the contemplation of the truth, till the revolution of the celestial world brings it around again to the same point." ** Wisdom is here to be understood in its philosophic meaning, as the knowledge which includes things divine and human - of things which the mind perceives intuitively, which have being as absolute reality without change or tendency to change. *** Reference was here made to the Mysteries. "In the Sacred Rites," says Olympiodoros, "public purifications came first, and afterward the oaths of secrecy and the initiations." In these occult observances the candidates began with a bath or baptism. The participants were supposed to obtain knowledge of the whole mystery of human life, its origin and purpose. ------------Many individuals entertain the belief or apprehension that the soul, their selfhood, upon being separated from the body, may itself become disintegrated and vanish like smoke or vapor. Sokrates replied to this by calling up the world-wide notion that the souls of the dead continue to exist in the invisible world and are again born among us here. Waiving this, however, in his discourse, he cites the fact that in the world of nature all things and conditions come from their contraries, from one to the other and back again. As waking and sleeping each comes after the other, so may living and dying. Indeed, unless this should be the case, unless one class of things shall be given back into the place

of another, thus making the circle complete, all things would eventually become in the same form and condition and cease to be produced. If all living things die and do not revive again, then death will finally absorb them all. Another argument hard for many to accept is that of Recollection. It is repeatedly affirmed in the Platonic Dialogues that what we really know of profound truth is not imparted to us from others, but is a possession of the Soul from its anterior state of being. It may be dormant and so not present in the consciousness, but it is the province of discipline and experience to bring it out into activity. Our perception of beauty, goodness, justice, holiness, was innate in us before we were born. Either we retain it through life or, having forgotten it, are obliged to learn it again. This, however, is but a recalling of it in the memory. We existed, therefore, in one form of being or another before our present term of life on earth. This, perhaps, may not be considered as quite a positive proof that we shall always continue to live. Sokrates accordingly points out the distinction between essence itself and compounded bodies - that the simple, unmingled essence is always the same, while the others are incessantly undergoing change. These last are perceived by the bodily senses, whereas essence can be apprehended only by the exercising of thought. To essence, therefore, the Soul is plainly allied and similar.* It is accordingly itself indissoluble, and being so, will not be, as many assert, immediately dispersed and destroyed. If the person has pursued philosophy aright, and the Soul has become perfectly pure, it will go to that which resembles itself - the invisible, divine, immortal and wise, and spend the rest of its existence with divine beings. ----------* Xenophon: Memoirs of Sokrates, IV, iii. "If there be anything in man, my Euthydemos, partaking of the Divine Nature, it must surely be the Soul which governs and directs him; yet no one considers this an object of sight. Learn, therefore not to despise those things which you cannot see. Judge of the greatness of the power by the effects which are produced, and reverence the Deity." ----------If, however, a soul has been constantly in communion with the body through desires and pleasures, thinking that there is nothing real except what is corporeal, which one can touch and see, drink and eat, and employ sensuously, but hating what is invisible and intellectible, then that soul must be contaminated and weighed down. Such souls dread the life of the invisible world, and wander among the tombs* till the corporeal desire that inheres with them brings about again their union to a body such as their habits shall adapt for them. ------------* In certain of the ancient occult observances individuals were wont to live for seasons among the tombs in hope of obtaining oracular communications from the spirit of the dead. See Isaiah lxv: 4 and Gospel According to Mark, v: 3. -------------On the contrary the soul of the student of wisdom brings the passions into a calm,

follows the guidance of reason, is not subjected or sustained by mere opinion, but contemplates intently what is true and divine. It is confident, therefore, that at its separation from the body it will be set free from human evils and always remain with a kindred essence - one like itself. It has no occasion to apprehend that it will cease to east. Simmias the Theban dissents from what Sokrates has now declared. He insists that the soul is like the harmony of a lyre, the outcome and result of the bodily organism. When the instrument is broken or out of order the harmony becomes extinct. It is evident, likewise, he remarks, that when the body is diseased the soul, although it is most divine, yet being itself a kind of harmony, must of necessity immediately perish. It does not take Sokrates long to show this analogy to be at fault. We see the soul in numberless instances opposing the desires of the body; whereas, if it was simply a harmony it would never do anything except as subject to them. It rules over the body in every particular, exercising absolute dominion as though it was itself superior and of a different nature. Hence the statement that it is simply a kind of harmony is not correct. Even then, however, it is not easy for the understanding to grasp the concept of never-ending existence. We may admit the proposition that the soul is of longer duration than the body. Nevertheless the objection raised by Kebes is a plausible one, that this by no means renders it certain that it will not eventually cease to exist. It may perhaps become exhausted in its career, and its union with the body may prove the beginning of its final destruction. This problem Sokrates acknowledges to be not an easy one, involving as it does the whole question of phenomenal existence. He had himself in earlier life been curious to gain knowledge in respect to this very matter and also to learn the causes of everything: why it came into existence and why it perished. He presently perceived that the generality of men were fumbling in the dark in respect to this matter, and became himself afraid lest he too should become utterly blinded in soul by endeavoring to grasp the subject by means of the several senses. Accordingly he next resolved to consider the reasons for which all things exist. He began with the hypothesis that there is an abstract principle of Beauty, Goodness, Magnitude and other qualities. Everything beautiful owes that excellence to the presence of the pervading principle of beauty, and everything large to its partaking of magnitude. Two qualities, however, that are opposite to each other, like greatness and littleness, heat and cold, cannot be present in the same thing at the same time. One will go when the other comes. The soul brings life to the body, and while present with it will not admit the contrary principle of death. Being thus itself the opposite of death, it is accordingly imperishable and will never cease to exist. When death seizes upon the body the soul withdraws from it into the invisible world.* ----------* Professor Cocker presents the following summary of reasoning in the Phaedo: "1. The Soul is immortal because it is incorporeal. - There are two kinds of existence: one compounded, the other simple; the former subject to change, the latter unchangeable; the one perceptible to sense, the other comprehended by mind alone. The one is visible, the other invisible. Whilst the Soul employs the bodily senses it wanders and is confused; but when it abstracts itself from the body it attains to knowledge which is stable, unchangeable and immortal. The Soul, therefore, being uncompounded, incorporeal, invisible, most be indissoluble - that is to say, immortal.

"2. The Soul is immortal because it has an independent power of self-motion - that is, it has self-activity and self-determination. No arrangement of matter, no configuration of body, can be conceived as the originator of free and voluntary movement. Now that which cannot move itself, but derives its motion from something else, may cease to move or perish. 'But that which is self-moved, never ceases to be active, and is also the cause of motion to other things that are moved.' And 'whatever is continually active is immortal.' 'This self-activity is', says Plato, 'the very essence and true notion of the soul.' Being thus essentially sensitive, it therefore partakes of the nature of a 'simple,' and it is the nature of a principle to exclude its contrary. That which is essentially self-active can never cease to be active; that which is the cause of motion and of change cannot be extinguished by the change called death. "3. The Soul is immortal because it possesses universal, necessary and absolute ideas which transcend all natural conditions, and bespeak an origin immeasurably above the body. No modification of matter, however refined, however elaborated, an give the Absolute, the Necessary, the Eternal. But the soul has the ideas of absolute beauty, goodness, perfection, identity and duration, and it possesses these ideas in virtue of its having a nature which is one, simple, identical, and in some sense eternal. If the soul an conceive an immortality it cannot be less than immortal. If by its very nature 'it has hopes that will not be bounded by the grave, and desires and longings that grasp eternity,' its future and destiny must correspond." ------------The Soul alone, therefore, is the selfhood, the individuality. Its separation from the body leaves it in its entireness, divested of no quality or character that pertained to it during its career upon the earth. It possesses nothing from the present life but its discipline and development, which may be of very great advantage or detriment at its entrance upon new scenes of existence. Death leaves it free to follow its own controlling genius. There can be no refuge from evil, no safety except by becoming as good and wise as God himself. "We shall use every endeavor to acquire virtue and wisdom in this life," is the concluding remark of Sokrates, "for the reward is noble and the hope great." Perhaps the solution of the problem is suggested by these words of Nathaniel Hawthorne: "We sometimes congratulate ourselves at the moment of waking from a terrible dream; it may be so after death." (Metaphysical Magazine, vol. 18, April - June, 1905) --------------------

The Creation a Genesis - Alexander Wilder For every a man is a living thought Dropped from the meditation of a God. In the dialogue entitled the Timaeos Plato submits a history of the Creation from its

inception to the various unfoldings. By courtesy, or from diffidence, or perhaps some apprehension of possible danger, he represents the account as having been given by the Pythagorean teacher after whom it is named. There was, however, no material difference of belief upon the subject. The discourse begins necessarily with the recognition of the Supreme Cause. This is presented with a twofold aspect,* namely: The one is Absolute, ever-being, but in no way coming into objective existence, and comprehended only by mental perception; while the other is apprehended by empirical knowing and the lower perceptive faculties, as manifest unceasingly in producing and dissolving, but never as absolute Being. ---------* The monad and dyad of Pythagoras. ---------Whatever exists derives existence necessarily from a cause, as without a cause nothing can exist. The demiurgus or fashioner of anything whatever, always taking heed of that which subsists permanently, and making it his pattern, is very certain to fabricate something of similar form and character. Pythagoras accordingly gave the name of cosmos to the universe as being such a perfect and orderly arrangement. In the Timaeos it is designated the All, and the sky or heaven, and is described as including the earth, the sun and moon, planets and fixed stars. Xenophanes held that it was without beginning, and therefore eternal and incorruptible, but Plato declares that as it has a body and is perceptible to the physical senses, it is subject to empirical knowing and therefore has its existence from a superior cause. Hence it is impossible to find out the Maker and Father of this universe, and the work, and when found to tell every one. As the universe is the most perfect and beautiful of existing things, it was evidently formed after the model that was eternal, and thus its creator is the best of causes. Being framed according to the best principles it will always continue the same. The Creator being good there is nothing of ill will in his work. It was his will and purpose that so far as possible everything should resemble himself. He took everything visible and in excessive disorder and brought it into a state of order. As of things perceptible to the senses nothing is better or more beautiful than that which is endowed with a soul, so also without a soul it is not possible to attain to mentality. Accordingly he established mind in soul and soul in a body, and thus constructed the universe, so that it was a work the best and most beautiful. It is proper and correct therefore to call the cosmos an animate being, endowed with a soul and mind. The body of the universe is described as being formed of the four elements, fire, water, air and earth. Its several parts cohere firmly together and are indissoluble. Hence it is exempt from old age and disease. As it is a living being which was destined to comprehend all other animate things within itself, he gave it a spherical figure, as most resembling himself. There being no need of the external senses, they were not bestowed. No organism is required for the receiving of food and the elimination of waste material; but the universe has been enabled to supply itself with nutriment through its own decay, and to accomplish for itself from its own resources everything necessary for its sustenance. Its movements being only in circles, it was created without hands or feet. Thus it was formed a body complete and perfect, and made up of many perfect constituents. The soul he

placed at the center, extending it through the entire universe, and surrounded this with the body outside. He also established one single, solitary sky, a circle revolving in a circle, sustaining itself through its inherent energy without contributions from without, but affluent for itself. Thus he brought forth this universe a blessed divinity. The philosopher declares, however, that the Deity did not create the soul later and younger than the body, for he would not that the older should be ruled by the younger; but we are in the habit of speaking in this way as being largely influenced by chance. He established the soul by origin and excellence, prior and older than the body, as its ruler and mistress. In its creation he took of the essence which is indivisible and unchangeable and also of that which is divisible and pertains to bodies, and made of their intermixture a third substance of intermediate character. Then joining the three together into one idea he again divided them into parts, of which he constituted the planetary divinities, the sun and moon and five others. Next he formed the corporeal universe, joining mind and body center to center. The soul, permeating every atom from the center to the circumference and at the same time enveloping it on the outside, established an unceasing and intelligent career through all time. The body of the universe is visible, but the soul is invisible, and participates in the reasoning faculty and established order of things, and has been constituted the best of generated things by him the best of eternal intelligences. The Creator in his delight resolved to make his creature even more like the divine pattern. The universe, the image of the eternal gods, lives and moves as belonging in their category; and he now determined to make it even more like them. Hence he devised Time, as a moving likeness of the ever-being, and established it in the order of number. He made the peculiar distinction of days and nights, months and years, conferring on them, however, no existence except such a they have with the universe itself, so that they would perish with it, if such an event were to happen. The sun, moon and five other planets enable the distinguishing of the enumerations incident to time. Up to this period the universe did not comprise the several animate races. These were devised in four categories: (1) the minor gods; (2) the winged tribes; (3) the races that dwell in the water; (4) those having feet and walking on the ground. The first of these, the gods of the celestial luminaries, he formed from fire and made their bodies circular. He also established for them two revolutions, the daily one on the axis, and the annual. The other divinities are not described in a philosophic manner. In this manner is described the origin of human beings. "Into the same cup in which the Creator by mingling had tempered the soul of the universe he poured what was left of the mixture. It was, however, no longer pure as before but diluted two or three degrees." When he had framed the universe he distributed souls equaling the stars in number, apportioning a soul to each star. He showed to them the nature of the universe and the laws of fate. Their first genesis would be the same with them all, and after having been placed in the organisms adapted to each, there would come forth the race the most religious of living beings. As the human nature was in two sexes, the superior would be the one which would henceforth be called Man. After setting forth the diversified passions incident to human beings, he further explained that each soul, after living uprightly, would return to its peculiar star, and pass there a blessed and agreeable period. But if there was failure in respect to a good life, the individual, in the next nativity would be changed into the nature of a woman, and if even then the soul did not amend it would sink into the nature

of a brute corresponding to the quality of the debasement. It will continue in that condition till it shall by reason overcome the disorderly and irrational tendency. It will then return to the first and best ideal state of mind. Having planted the souls in different regions, some on the earth, some in the moon, and others in different organisms of the region of Time, the Creator delivered to the younger gods the charge of constructing mortal bodies, and providing everything additional which might be required for the human soul. He also committed into their hands authority over the moral nature to guide and protect from evils. Having duly arranged all these matters he remained in himself as is his peculiar manner. His children obeying him took the immortal principle of a mortal being, and borrowed from the cosmos portions of fire and earth, water and air, to be given back after a period. These they fastened firmly together by nails that were invisible from an infinite smallness, and fashioned from them each particular body. Thus the immoral soul was placed in a body that is subject to renewal and decay. This body was endowed with sensations and the various affections by which it is agitated and disturbed, till with maturity attains also the conditions of a rational being. It was in imitation of the spherical shape of the universe, the philosopher explains, that the two circulations of the soul were placed in a spheroid body, the head, which possesses the characteristic of a deity, ruling everything in us. To it the body is given as its servant and vehicle of motion from place to place. Accordingly the body has been endued with length and furnished with arms and legs to enable it to perform its various offices. The fore parts being the more honorable and fitter for ruling, it was provided that voluntary movements should be chiefly in a forward direction. For analogous reasons the face was placed in front, and organs were given to it to express all the energies of the soul. The first of these were the eyes, which are described as consisting of fire, not intense enough to burn, but giving a gentle light. When light from outside falls upon them they are affected through the similitude of its nature, and the motion which is produced diffusing itself through the body even to the soul causes that sensation of sight. This sense is the source of the greatest benefit; compared to it the other senses are of less importance. It enables us to survey the whole field of knowledge. In these matters it is greatly aided by the faculty of hearing, by which we are able to appreciate sounds and properly appreciate harmonies. Having given this exposition of the creation in its aspect as a product of Mind, the philosopher breaks off from that discussion to take up the obverse view. "For," he explains, "the creation or outbirth of the cosmos was the result from the alliance of Necessity with Mind." As in this discourse he had made use of a twofold form of speech, treating of it as a pattern or eternal idea which only the mind can apprehend, and a semblance or imitation of it which has been produced in objective form in the region of sense. He now changes his mode of description and presents a third quality, matter. Plato never makes use of the Greek term by which this is expressed, but describes it as the special receptacle and nurse of the whole creation, and as "an invisible and unshapen ideal securing everything." He changes the factors and goes into detail, making use of theories and hypotheses which are not in harmony with later discovery and speculation. He follows Empedokles in supposing the primal constituents to be fire, air, earth and water, which are mingled together chaotically till the creative energy separates and arranges them. The minute particles of matter are explained to be triangles so infinitely

small as to be invisible to the sight. From these the various forms were produced by combining them. In this way the philosopher, as Emerson remarks, "throws mathematical dust." It pertains to the science of geometry, to which Plato was so devoted as to declare that the Creator himself was a geometer. Returning to the human constitution, he again recalls his statement that the younger divinities received from the Creator the immortal principle of the soul, and fashioned the mortal body as its vehicle. They also formed within the body a separate mortal kind of soul possessed of the various powerful and urgent emotions. First of these was pleasure, the allurement to wrong-doing; then the pains inciting to flight from whatever is good; then rashness and fear, two counselors void of judgment; passions hard to be appeased and hope easily led astray by unreasoning sense and all-daring love. Dreading to contaminate the divine quality, which is in no respect the product of the lower sphere of Necessity, they constructed a different abode for the mortal part of the soul, and placed the neck as an isthmus and boundary between the two. Thus the immortal soul is enthroned in the head, and the mortal constituents are assigned to the breasts and trunk. A part of these are naturally superior and another part inferior; and accordingly they made two divisions of the trunk, placing the diaphragm between. That part of the soul which participates of courage and forcefulness, and which is ambitious, they gave an abode nearer to the head, between the heart and neck, in order that it may act in concert with the reasoning faculty in holding fast the multitude of eager longings when they are not willing to comply with the mandate and pleading from the citadel. As the heart is the beginning of the blood-vessels, which extend through the body, they established it in the guard-house in the thoracic cavity in order that in case of any outbreak of passion it may transmit by way of these narrow channels the appeals and warnings of the reasoning faculty, thus bringing the body to obedience, and enabling the best that is in us to take the lead in everything. The lungs are described as being placed like a soft cushion around the heart, and serving as a protection to it as well as to enable respiration. That part of the soul which craves foods and drinks and whatever is needed for sustenance, was placed between the heart and navel, thus making the place a sort of manger. The liver was also placed in this region of the body in order to modify the irregular activity of this part, thus enabling the soul to enjoy suitable repose at night, together with the power of divining during sleep to make up for being destitute of a reasoning faculty and sagacity. It was a direction of the Creator to make the mortal race as superior as possible. The faculty of divination was given to it as a supplement to the human mania or rapture, and hence it is manifest only when the mortal powers are fettered by sleep, or overcome through disease or the enthusiastic frenzy. But an intelligent person may understand both the things uttered or recalled to recollection, when asleep or awake, which are of the nature of divination or of divine inspiration, and may explain rationally the visions which he contemplates, whether they signify what is future or past, evil or good. It is not the office of the individual who is thus affected, to understand or interpret while in this condition, what is beheld or uttered by himself. Hence the order of prophets or interpreters is employed; but they are not diviners. The spleen aids the liver in the task of removing impurities. The belly, with its numerous convolutions of intestines, serves as a receptacle for the food, preventing it from

passing so quickly from the body as to require rapid supplies anew, and thus by insatiable appetite rendering the whole human race opposed to philosophy and the Muses, and not obedient to the divinest of the influences within. The framework of the body, the philosopher describes as having its source from the "marrow." By this designation he means the cerebro-spinal nervous system, the brain and spinal cord. "The bands of life which fasten the soul to the body," he affirms, "are found in this substance, and it constitutes the radical germ of the mortal race." He further explains that the Deity formed it from the primal triangular particles, and implanted in it the rudiments of human souls, establishing the innumerable forms and figures which the souls were to have. That portion of the nervous substance which contains the divine principle, the encephalon or brain, was fashioned in globular form, and the remaining portion in which the mortal part of the soul is domiciled, was extended in both round and oblong shapes. Giving this nerve-material a covering of bone, he developed from it the whole body. The skull was shaped as a sphere in order to surround the brain, and the vertebral column was extended from it along the whole trunk. Then came the bones of the other parts. The muscles and flesh were designed in order to make the body flexible, and to protect against the extremes of weather, and injuries from falling. The bones which have marrow and are most endowed with soul have little flesh, but the others have abundance. If the head had abounded with tendons and flesh, the term of human life would have been much longer; but the divine creators considered it preferable that there should be a better quality of life, even though for a shorter term. The brain accordingly is covered only by a thin bone, and so while it is gifted with a superior endowment of mind, it is weaker physically than the rest of the body. There are also the mouth, teeth, tongue and lips, performing a twofold office of admitting food for the nourishing of the body, and permitting the utterance of words. The scalp which extends over the top of the head, serves many purposes. The hair upon it gives shade and protection from heat and cold. There is also a hard membrane about the fingers, consisting of a mixture of skin, tendon and bone. The creators foresaw that from men there would be produced women and the various tribes of animals, and as it would be required, they placed skin and hair upon the animals and established the growing of the nails at the extremities. The means of sustenance for the new race were provided by the creating of trees and plants for their supply. These have been made suitable for the purpose by cultivation. Both Plato and Empedokles believed plants to be living beings animated by a soul, and as masculine and feminine. Being engendered by an intermingling of nature akin to the human, it was considered necessary to regard them as having the mortal soul, but not the power of forming opinion, or of reasoning, and without the superior mind. They differ from animals by being rooted in one place. Besides the provision for sustenance the functions of circulation and respiration demand attention. The blood-vessels constitute a network extending through every part of the body, irrigating it with a perennial stream. The lungs were also constituted for respiration. Intimately connected with this function is the maintenance of the vital warmth, so absolutely necessary to the performing of the several bodily functions, and even to existence itself. Plato lays stress upon the color of red, explaining its nature as consisting of fire or caloric interblended with earthy substances. Hence the blood is red, because of containing the nourishing principle of the entire body.

Alimentation and nutrition are common to every living thing. Our own bodies are all the while melting away, and the material going back to where it was borrowed. At the same time the blood, flowing through us in imitation of the revolutions of the universe, replenishes the voids which have been created. When these supplies are exceeded by the wasting there is decay, but when they are more abundant there are growth and expanding. The agency which induces these motions and changes are ascribed by the philosopher to a common force analogous to what is possessed by amber and the lodestone. In earlier periods of life the triangular particles of the body are new, as being formed from fresh timber, and the frame is delicate. By the assimilating of new particles it grows. But when in course of time the inherent energy of the particles is relaxed, the ability to assimilate food is lessened, and there comes apace the condition of advanced age. Eventually the bonds about the nervous system which hold fast the soul, are unloosed, and it is set free. The soul which is thus liberated after the course of nature, flies away delighted. Indeed, everything which is not contrary to nature, is sweet. So it is with death. When it occurs with diseases or bodily injuries, it is painful and compulsory; but when it comes with old age, or according to nature, it is the easiest of all, and comes with pleasure rather than with pain. In regard to diseases Plato explicitly imputes them to the condition of the blood. He explains that the flesh and tissues dissolve, and that effete substances pass into the veins, thus working mischief to the blood itself. It thus becomes hostile to the constitution of the body. The dark part takes on an acid condition, bile is formed, and likewise acid and white phlegm. The blood not being replenished in the order of nature, but chiefly from these substances contrary to nature, a general disorder results. He discriminates between the several modes in which this is manifested, describing some as suppurative and capable of recovery, but others as liable to become gangrenous, and so being more dangerous. The variety of such complaints is innumerable. When the bone is affected the ailments become more severe; but when the marrow or nerve-structure is the seat of trouble the whole nature of the body goes wrong, and complaints the most unmanageable and fatal are liable. A third form of disorders result by gas in the body, by phlegm resulting from inflammation, and by bile. When the passages to the lungs are obstructed by mucus, the breath finding no proper egress in a single direction, there is a general disturbance, and painful disease with copious sweating. In aggravated cases tetanus or opisthotonos is induced. If the mucus or "white phlegm" can be mitigated by breathing the result is less serious, but various kinds of eruptions may occur. If the head is affected and the patient is attacked while awake, epilepsy is a result. An acid and salt mucus induces catarrhal disorders, for which there are many names. In his explanation of inflammations, Plato seems to recognize the sympathetic or ganglionic nervous system formerly so little noticed. He sets down the bile as the morbific agent, which produces many inflammatory disorders. When it mingles with the blood he remarks that it disturbs the action of those fibers, or nerves, which are distributed into the blood to vivify it, giving it proper thinness and density. These fibers preserve the blood in wholesome condition by an innate principle of nature. The bile, which consists of old blood changed into it by the dissolving of the flesh, becomes condensed by this influence, and then are produced chills and trembling internally. If the inflammatory character is sufficiently intense to overcome the life-imparting influence of the fibers of the ganglial

system, it will also affect the cerebro-spinal system, break the bonds which bind the soul, and set it completely free from the body. But in milder conditions the bile is mastered by the physical energies and expelled, or is forced into the intestines to be driven out as effete material. In these procedures it will often cause diarrhoeas, dysenteries, and other forms of bowel complaint. But when the body chances to be overheated there may be continued fever. When the atmosphere is the cause of this, the fever is quotidian, prevailing every day; if it be water, the fever is tertian, intermitting alternate days; but if it is earth, the fever is quartan, and very hard to treat successfully. The philosopher also mentions disease of the soul, having its origin in the manner of life. Unreason is instanced as being such disease. Of this he indicates two forms: mad passion and unteachableness. Any emotion that induces either of these must be considered as itself disease. Inordinate pleasures and pains may accordingly be set down as formidable maladies in the soul. A person is an example who is over-joyous, or on the contrary, borne down by pain and suffering, and endeavoring to keep hold of the one and to escape the other. He can neither see nor hear anything aright, and is hardly capable of exercising the reasoning faculty. A person in whome the seed of life about the nervous system is in abundance is like a tree overladen with fruit. He will suffer many severe pains and have many pleasures in his desires and the incident results. He is tormented for most of his life by the greatest pleasures and pains of mind, and the soul being disordered and irrational through the body, he is commonly looked upon not as diseased but as wilfully bad. In truth, however, excess in sexual delights frequently becomes a disease of the soul. Indeed, it may be asserted almost positively that all cases of immoderateness or matters of reproach in any kind of pleasure whatever are not rightly blamed as being actions intentionally bad. For no one is bad on purpose, but the bad person becomes bad through habit of the body and an ill or neglected training in early life. These, the philosopher insists, are the real sources of much of the wrong-doing and depravity. Ill conditions of the body act on the psychic nature, and the unhealthy secretions produce in this way an infinite variety of disease. The vicious morals of cities, and discourse, both public and private, contribute to the same trouble; and no branches of learning are taught in early life which might serve as remedies for such mighty ills. This state of things is to be ascribed to the planters rather than to those in whom the evil is implanted, and to the instructors rather than to those whom they have instructed. In regard to the care of the body and understanding, Plato remarks that it is far more fitting and right to take account of good things than of what are bad. Everything that is good is beautiful and becoming, and that which is beautiful is never unsymmetric. There are by nature two forms of desire with human beings, one of food for the body, and the other of intelligence for the sake of that which is most divine in us. When the body is dominant over the soul it makes the rational part of the soul deaf, slow to learn, and forgetful; and thus it produces ignorance, which is the worst disease. Yet when the moral nature is more powerful than the body it brings the whole interior constitution into disorder; and when it is impetuous in the pursuit of learning and investigation it causes the body to waste away; and when through the love of dispute it employs itself with doctrines and conflicts in discourse, it inflames the body and relaxes the tissues, causing rheums and catarrhs which mislead physicians, inducing them to attribute the complaints to contradictory causes.

The remedy is for neither body nor soul to act without the reciprocal co-operation of the other, thus bringing about an equilibrium. He who devotes himself to knowledge and literature should also engage in gymnastic exercises, and he who is careful of his body should also train his soul in the discipline of music and philosophy, if he would be symmetric in body and soul, and so beautiful and good. The philosopher draws a line almost prohibitory against cathartic medicines. Diseases, unless they are extremely dangerous, he declares, should never be irritated by medicines. Every form of malady has, like an animal, an allotted term of existence. Hence, if a disease is destroyed before the time, a worse malady is likely to take the place of the lighter one, and many such from out of the few. On this account, he insists, we ought, so far as we have leisure and opportunity, to manage all sicknesses by diet and regimen, and avoid the risk of arousing a worse disorder by the administering of medicines. In short, as has been set forth, there are three forms of the soul distributed in a threefold manner in the body, each with its peculiar activities. When any of these chances to be torpid, and does not properly perform its peculiar functions, it becomes debilitated. We ought therefore to require each of them to maintain its own activities to an extent equivalent with the others. In regard to the divine guardian, Plato is very definite. "In respect to the supreme or divine part of the soul that is close to us, we must understand this, namely: The Deity gave to every one a daemon or guardian divinity; and we positively declare that it has its abode in the summit of the body; and that as we are not an earthly planting, but a heavenly, its office is to take us from the earth to the kindred in heaven. For we, asserting things that are most true, affirm positively that the Deity, making our head and root dependent from that source from which the soul had its first origin, directs the whole body aright." (Metaphysical Magazine, vol. 19, no. 6, August, 1906) ------------------

Iamblichos, His Life and Times - Alexander Wilder In her rare work, "The Progress of Religious Ideas Through Successive Ages," Mrs. Lydia Maria Child describes with admirable candor the Later Platonists of the Alexandrian School. "Their earliest leaders," she declares, "were men of uncommon intellect, who both by precept and example inculcated pure and elevated morality. They were often called 'Eclectics,' because they selected from old philosophies what they considered the best, and formed a more perfect system from them. But though they drew from various sources, their doctrines were principally Platonic. Of course they believed in the pre-existence of the soul, and its imprisonment in matter during which it had glimpses of its heavenly home received by intuition in elevated states of mind; and also in its final return through holiness to the spheres of glory whence it came." The empire of Dareios Hystaspis and the conquests of Alexander and Seleukos extended into India, and teachers from that region had penetrated into the Western

Countries and commingled their doctrines with the philosophic and theological notions which existed there. As a consequence the various rites of family, tribe, and temple, were exalted by loftier allegorical interpretations, and more spiritual perceptions were attained of life and moral obligation. Of course, the law of polarity is always operative to make distinctions between diverse notions and qualities, as the inflowing of light makes the darkness appear more vivid and adverse. While the lovers of the right will retain their exalted place and character, those that are unjust will remain unjust still, and those that are filthy will continue filthy still. It is enough, however, to let them go with their own. The establishment of the famous School at Alexandria by the Ptolemies as a World's University afforded opportunity for the various teachers of knowledge and exalted thinking from different regions, to hold communication with one another, and to compare and elaborate their various dogmas. The new impulse which had been given to philosophic speculation, had resulted in the uprising of a great variety of sects in the different countries, each professing to a superior esoteric wisdom. It was in the reign of the Emperor Alexander Severnus, about the year 225 of the present era, that Ammonios Sakkas, a humble student of the works of Plato and other teachers, attempted at Alexandria to develop and establish a system which should include the essential principles which were inculcated by the different philosophers, with the purer conceptions embraced in the various worships. This was embodied in a Secret Doctrine which he imparted to his disciples, with the obligation not to divulge it except to others who had been obligated like themselves. This was not an unusual practice, for all the Mysteries were so guarded, and Pythagoras and other teachers had adopted the same procedure. Even the records of the new Christian religion indicate the same tiring to have been current in their instructions.* -----------* Gospel According to Mark, iv., 33, 34. "With many such parables (or allegories), spake He the Word unto them, as they were able to hear; but without a parable spoke He not unto them. And when they were alone He expounded all things to his disciples." First Epistle of Paul to Corinthians, ii, 6, 7. "But we discourse freely of wisdom among the perfected ones, but not the wisdom of this age nor of the archons of this age, which is becoming of no account; but on the other hand we discourse of the wisdom of God in Mystery, occult, which not one of the archons of this age knew." (New translation). -----------Several of the disciples of Ammonios, however, disregarded the obligation to secrecy, and so the practice of teaching by lectures and conversation was afterward pursued. Plotinos was the most distinguished among this number. Ammonios, like Sokrates and Pythagoras, had committed nothing to writing, but the young Egyptian became the new Plato to give his teachings literary form and disseminate them among learners. Another disciple of Ammonios was Longinus. His learning was so general and extensive that he was often called "the living library." He established a school of philosophy and general science at Athens. One of his pupils was Malekh, a native of Tyre. The earnestness and proficiency exhibited by this young man, were greatly admired by the preceptor. As Greek was now the classic language of the Roman Empire, his name

Malekh (or King) was changed to Porphyrios, or wearer of the royal purple. Ammonios died in 245 and Plotinos, after an unsuccessful journey with the army of Gordian into the Parthian dominion in hope to learn more of the wisdom of the East, made his residence at Rome. Porphyry, now thirty years old, became his student. The young man was a prolific writer, and to him we are principally indebted for what is known of his celebrated master. Besides editing the works of Plotinos, he produced many of his own, the influence of which over the Roman world was so profound and extensive, that the disciples of the later Platonic philosophers were commonly designated Porphyrians. Iamblichos* was a native of Chalkis in Hollow Syria, and was born about the year 282. He belonged to a rich and noble family, and received a liberal education. He resolved to devote himself to philosophy, and attended the lectures of Anatolios, teacher of great ability who was regarded as exceeded only by Porphyry himself. Indeed, Porphyry so greatly esteemed him, as to dedicate to him his work, "Platonic Questions.'' Iamblichos, however, soon left him to become the pupil of the master. He did not attain the eloquence or grace of manner which characterized his instructors. His scholarship was extensive, but he was slow of utterance and his style of writing is described as dry and complicated, repelling the reader. ---------* The name of this philosopher was originally the same as that of his preceptor, while, the designation of the latter was Hellenised, that of the pupil, perhaps for the sake of more definite distinction was simply alliterated after the Greek style with the letter yod or I prefixed to express individuality. As the Semitic Mem was pronounced more closely than the Greek nub the letter b was added, making the name IAMBLICHOS. Though the term MLKH, malek or moloch, is Semitic, it appears from the inscriptions to have been also the designation of the Kings of Northern Egypt, "the land of Ham." -----------Nevertheless, Iamblichos seems always to have been surrounded by a large crowd of students and disciples. His earnest appeals for the right, both in conduct and administration, won for him favor to a remarkable degree. Wherever he went he was attended by a great concourse of pupils and admirers who had come from all parts of Syria, Asia Minor and Greece, who listened to his words with eagerness and profound reverence. Many of these afterward became distinguished. Among them may be named Sopater* the Syrian, Aedesios and Eustathios of Kappadocia, Theodoros** and Euphrasios from Greece. All these excelled in eloquence and moral worth, and many of the others were little inferior to them. It was remarkable that one man should be able to give attention to so many pupils, and at the same time maintain proper courtesy and dignity. -----------* Sopater was famous for his eloquence as a writer and lecturer. He succeeded Iamblichos as the teacher of Platonic philosophy at Alexandria, and won the title of "Successor to Plato." For a season he enjoyed the friendship of Constantine, and when the Emperor established his capitol at the New Rome, Sopater at his solicitation, performed the usual rites of consecration. Being further asked, however, to purify the Emperor from the taint of bloodshed acquired by the slaying of his son, the philosopher replied, that he

knew of no rite which could absolve from murder. He paid for this temerity with his life. The Emperor put him to death, renounced his own obligations as a "Soldier of Mithras," and professed Christianity. The waning of Neo-Platonism as a dominant philosophy thus began. ** Theodoros had been a pupil of Porphyry, at whose death he attached himself to Iamblichos. He was a disciple worthy of his master. Proklos testifies of them that Iamblichos and Theodoros both taught the doctrines of Plato energetically with a mind divinely inspired. -----------In his personal habits, Iamblichos was simple almost to asceticism. He was frugal in his diet, living on fruits and vegetables, and abstaining from flesh. Plain living and high thinking characterized the old philosophers. Yet those who were his companions at the table were abundantly exhilarated by the genial atmosphere of the party and charmed by the sweetness of his discourse. He seems to have literally conformed to the direction ascribed to Jesus in regard to prayer and personal communion with Divinity. All was strictly performed privately and alone. Everything else was public and conducted in the presence of his followers. Such of them as were never wearied of hearing him, were his constant companions. On one occasion they asked: "Why, master, do you do this alone, and do not admit us to this deeper wisdom? For it has been told to us by your servants that while you have been engaged in prayer, you have been seen lifted up more than ten cubits above the ground, your body and garments at the same time appearing of the color of gold. They tell further, that when these prayers of yours were finished, your body returned to the former condition and you came down again to earth, then to associate and discourse with us as before." Iamblichos, though usually sedate and quiet of manner, now laughed heartily. "The person who made up this story is not a senseless fool," said he, "but in future nothing shall take place in which you do not participate." * -----------* This account is vouched for by Chrysanthios of Sardis, himself a Platonic teacher and pupil of Aedesios. In the Life of Apollonios, it is related by Demis that he saw Brahmans in India walking in the air at two cubits above the earth, not to win admiration, but in reverence to the Sun. Ammianus, the historian, also refers to the Brahmans, "who walk aloft in the air among their altars." -----------Another story is told by Aedesios, which reminds us of one preserved in relation to Sokrates and his monitor. Iamblichos at the time was sojourning at Alexandria. It was midsummer, when the sun rises in conjunction with the dog-star. He went to one of the suburbs to sacrifice. As he returned with his disciples, they walked slowly and were conversing about the divinities and their care for men. Meanwhile Iamblichos was silent, rapt in thought, and looking downward. Suddenly, he exclaimed: "Let us take another path; there is a funeral procession not far away." He and part of the company accordingly did so; but others, more in number, Aedesios among them, persisted in going on as before. They regarded Iamblichos as superstitious, and determined to risk the

consequences. Surely enough, it was not long before there came the bearers of the dead. The unbelieving disciples asked whether the men had taken that road at the first. They replied that there was no other way that led to the place of destination. Even this occurrence did not convince these doubters of the superior endowment of their master, and they asked him for some more unequivocal token. He answered that such matters did not depend on his will individually, but upon the suitable opportunity. Aedesios, who afterward made his abode at Pergamos, was likewise a pupil of Alypios at Alexandria. Alypios was a subtle reasoner and skilful in dialectics. He was of a figure so short, that he resembled one of the race of pygmies that exists in the heart of Africa. He was dscribed by admirers as being composed of soul and mind, while the corporeal part was apparently merged in the more divine. They quoted the remark of Plato that divine bodies are contained in the souls.* He did not write but instructed entirely by conversation. Many of his pupils became also students of Iamblichos. One day the two met in the street and were soon surrounded by an eager crowd. As Alypios was usually ready with recondite questions, Iamblichos waited for him to begin. Alypios, however, sought to avoid this, till he perceived the temper of the auditors. Then addressing Iamblichos, he asked: "Tell me, philosopher, is the rich person unjust, or the heir to such injustice?" ------------* Plotinos: Ennead IV, iii, 22. "Plato says that there is something of soul in which body is contained, and also something in which there is nothing of body." ------------Iamblichos replied: "I am an utter stranger to this mode of reasoning. He is the righteous man who is distinguished not by having more riches than others, but by virtue." He then turned away, and the multitude dispersed. But reflecting upon the matter and admiring the subtlety of the question, he became desirous of further acquaintance, and often visited Alypios. He warmly praised the acumen of the dialectician, and his superior reasoning power. After his death, Iamblichos wrote a sketch of his life, praising his constancy and fortitude under privation and cruel persecutions. In that period, marvels and miracles were related of all distinguished personages and we find them ascribed to the illustrious Syrian philosopher. It was affirmed in the treatise on the Mysteries that individuals on certain occasions had been lifted by the occult force to a considerable distance from the ground. It was believed by his disciples that like Owain Glendowr he possessed superhuman power with spiritual beings, and over the physical elements. That he was familiar with the trances and other manifestations common among individuals of sensitive temperament, and in spiritualistic sittings and enthusiastic religions and other assemblages, is plainly shown in his writings. Little that is related of these exhibitions in these modern times, is without exemplar in his writings. But he had no taste for the arts of the individual who presumes upon human credulity. When the appeal was made to him to show by some sign his superior faculties, he simply replied that he could not do such things at beck and call. After he had returned to Syria, it is related that on one occasion, all his scholars accompanied him in an excursion to the Baths at Gadara. There were two springs of pure

water a little way off. The inhabitants told him that one was called Eros or Love and the other Anteros, the bestower of love for love. Iamblichos touched the water, when the figures of two boys of celestial beauty appeared and clasped him lovingly around the neck. After that no one ventured to doubt his immediate communication with divine beings. Eunapios, the historian, comments upon these wonderful relations. "Many other wonderful things are recounted of him," says he, "but they are so inane and incredible that I am afraid to repeat them, for it is not pleasing to Divinity that fables and fictitious stories should be mingled with true and conscientious history. I would even have scrupled to repeat these examples if they had not come from individuals who were eye-witnesses." The death of Iamblichos occurred about the year 332, during the reign of Constantine. We have no particulars. His had been a quiet, long life, and he had made his influence felt in all ranks of thinkers. The Emperor Julian held him in the highest esteem, giving him the epithet of "divine," and considered the work on the Mysteries as beyond all value to the enquirer after superior knowledge. It has been said that Porphyry modified the teachings of New Platonism, by allegorizing the mythic legends of the gods so as to adapt their worship to the philosophic doctrines. But Iamblichos is also under the imputation of further changing them into a theosophic system which accorded with Egyptian theology. The whole matter is set forth in the Letter of Porphyry to Anebo the neket or exponent of oracles, and the Reply of Abammon the preceptor. Whether Iamblichos wrote this Reply is sometimes disputed, but it is certainly a production setting forth his views, as well as fairly defining the whole subject of oracles and theurgy. An account of this work is given by Samuel Sharpe in his History of Egypt. "Alypios of Alexandria and his friend Iamblichos," he remarks, "still taught the philosophy of Ammonios and Plotinos, though the philosophers were so much in the habit of moving about to Alexandria, Pergamos, or Rome, that it is not always easy to know in what school they taught." He further adds that Iamblichos had studied under Anatolios in the School of Christian Peripatetics, and left many works of his own composition. He declares further that "in his Treatise on Mysteries, in which he quotes the Hermetic books of Bytis an Egyptian priest, the outward visible symbols become emblems of divine truth; the Egyptian religion becomes a branch of Platonism, and their gods so many agents or intermediate beings, only worshiped as servants of the one Creator." Perhaps, if the Roman Emperors had made this philosophic faith the religion of the Empire, there would have been avoided the controversies, the cruelties and bloodshed, which for sixteen centuries have blackened the annals of the Occidental world. The writings of Iamblichos were numerous, and for a season were widely disseminated. They, however, shared the fate of the other philosophic works of the Alexandrian school. The change in the legalized worship of the empire, and the Imperial ban, placed on the books and those having them in possession resulted in the loss of most of them. The treatise of Iamblichos which is best known, De Mysteriis Egypticorum, etc., concerning the Mysteries of the Egyptians, has sometimes been disputed as to its authorship. The reasons for this seem to be hardly sufficient. It affords a very complete conception of Theurgy, the Occult Rites, and their philosophic basis. The translation by Thomas Taylor, though quaint and obscure, has passed through two editions. The writer also made a translation which was printed in The Platonist, and a revised edition more thorough, is now in manuscript.

Iamblichos also wrote a work in ten books, entitled, "Concerning the Pythagorean Philosophy, or Collection of Pythagoric Dogmas," of which five only are now extant. They are enumerated as follows: I. De Vita Pythagorica Liber - Concerning the Pythagoric Life, edition in Greek and Latin in 1598 by Theodoretus; in 1707 by Kuster; in 1816 by Kiessling of Leipzig, and in 1884 by Wauck. Translated by Thomas Taylor, 1818. II. Adhortatio ad Philosophiam - Exhortation to Philosophy - edited in 1598 by Theodoretus, and published in 1813 by Kiessling. Translated by Thomas M. Johnson, but still in manuscript. III. De Communi Mathematica Scientia - Science of Mathematics, edited in 1781 by Villoison of Venice and in 1891 by Festa of Leipzig. IV. Commentarius in Nicomachi Arithmeticam Introductionem - Commmentary on the Introduction of Nicomachus to Arithmetic, edited in 1668 by Tennulius and in 1894 by Bistelli of Leipzig. V, VI, VII. De Physicis, Ethicis, et Divinis Quae in Numerarum Doctrina Observantur. Of these only the Seventh, the Theologomena Arithmeticae is extant, ed. in 1817 by Ast of Leipzig. VIII. Institutiones Musicae ad Mentem Pythagoraeorum. - Lost. IX. Institutiones Geometricae ad Mentem Pythagoraeorum. - Lost. X. Institutiones Sphericae ad Mentem Pythagoraeorum - Lost. There are also the following of which we have account, namely: 1. De Divinitate Imaginum Liber - Only fragments remain. 2. Epistolae ad Aretam, Macedonium, Sopatrem, etc. Many fragments have been preserved by Stobaeus. 3. De Diis - Concerning Divine Beings. - Lost. Julian the Emperor made great use of this book in Oratio IV. 4. Commentaries on the Parmenides, Timaeos, and Phaedo of Plato. - Lost. 5. Concerning the Mystic Chaldaic Philosophy. - Lost. This was an extensive treatise and is cited by Damaskios. 6. De Anima. - Concerning Soul. Fragments have been preserved by Stobaeus. It is quoted largely by Priscianus Lydus. 7. Monobiblions - Showing that the Transmigrations of Souls are not from Men to Irrational Creatures, nor from Irrational Animals to Men, but from Animals to Animals, and from Men to Men. Venesus: De Anima, Chap. II, Sec. vii. The school at Alexandria was continued during the reign of Constantine and his successors. The accession of Julian to the imperial throne gave the philosophers and their disciples high hope that the favor of which they had been deprived was to be restored. These hopes were shattered by the death of the Emperor in battle against the Parthians. Other teachers succeeded to the leadership of the school. Then Hypatia, eloquent and beautiful, became the chief instructor, and once more crowds thronged the lecture-room. Her murder by a mob at the church in Alexandria branded lasting disgrace upon those who abetted as well as those who perpetrated the crime.

The light continued to shine at the School of Athens. Plutarch and Syrianos were among the principal luminaries. It was reserved, however, for Proklos to put on the copestone. Combining religious devotion with the acuteness of the scholar, he constructed out of the Dialogues of Plato, the Enneads of Plotinos, the innumerable works of Porphyry, Iamblichos and their successors, a system free from contradictions and vague absurdities, which should be adequate to the demands of thinking men for all subsequent centuries. The seed has been sown in many fields and continued to yield its harvest duly according to the nature of the soil. (The Word, vol. 3, no. 5, Aug., 1906) ------------------

THE LAST WORDS OF SOCRATES - Alexander Wilder "Crito, I owe a cock to Asclepius; pay the debt, and be sure you don't forget it." It has been affirmed that the meaning of these words has been misunderstood for more than twenty-two centuries. One class of writers would have us believe that the great sage, notwithstanding his great acuteness, was still a "Pagan", the worshiper of "false gods". Another suggestion is that he retained till the supreme moment his inveterate habit of irony. I am at a loss how to relate in proper terms the conjectures which are evidently so short-sighted and superficial. It would seem to the common apprehension that at such a time the dying man had done with word-conflicts, and was himself contemplating the apocalypse of existence now unfolding to him. The whole discourse of the Phaedo relates to this matter. What men call death is the real life, the awakening of the interior man to consciousness and the society of immortal and divine beings; and philosophy is the preparing, the schooling of ourselves for entering upon this mode of existence. Especially is this the case when the soul is separated in a pure condition, when it leaves the body and has not been so bewitched by it as to think that nothing is real unless it is corporeal and perceptible by the physical senses. "Every idea is a something," he declares. It will not admit or harmonize with its own contrary; as the odd will never accept the idea of the even, or the just and musical the idea of the unjust and unmusical. So, too, that which is immortal will not admit or recognize death; and the soul, being utterly incapable of making such an admission, is accordingly itself immortal. It requires our care, therefore, not for a lifetime merely, but for all time. Every soul has its respective demon [1] or guardian spirit, which conducts it, after death, to its proper station. Those who have lived a life eminently holy are set free and go to supernal abodes; and there is a special beatitude for those of them who have purified themselves by philosophy - the love and pursuit of wisdom. The conversation had reached this point when the time arrived for drinking the hemlock. The great sage complied promptly and cheerfully with the fatal sentence; and just as the poison was completing its work, he uncovered his face and delivered the memorable charge to Crito. To impute the common idolatry of the period to Socrates, appears out of place and

without warrant. Socrates and Plato both agree, says Plutarch, that God is the ONE, having beginning from itself, sole in essence, and that he is the one only being good; all these designations and representations denoting goodness having their center in the interior mind. Hence God is to be understood as that Mind or Spirit which is a separate idea, not mingled with matter or involved with anything having passions. "Thou shalt understand," said Socrates to Aristodemos, "that there is a Deity whose eye pierceth through all nature, and whose ear is open to every sound; extended through all places, and extending through all time; and whose bounty and care can know no other bound than those fixed by his own creation." On the morning when he repaired to the court of the archon-king to answer for his life, he met Euthyphron - a mantis or diviner belonging to the sacerdotal college - who inquired why he had left the Lyceum and appeared where men were held to answer for murder and sacrilege. Socrates replied that he was there to answer the accusation of Meletos, of corrupting the young men, introducing new gods, and disbelieving in the ancient divinities. "It is because you say that a tutelary spirit constantly attends you," said Euthyphron. "He gives his accusation this shape, knowing that charges relating to innovations in worship are most readily entertained by the populace." Euthyphron had come to denounce his own father for having murdered a slave, and, being an acknowledged authority in religious matters, Socrates proposed to be taught by him what was holy and what was sacrilegious. Euthyphron .... proposed to find the weak side of the accuser, in order to occupy the court with a discussion about him, rather than about the defendant. Stepping beyond such suggestions, Socrates demanded what was holy and what impiety. "That which is pleasing to the gods is holy, and that which is not pleasing to them is impious," replied the diviner. "An admirable answer," said Socrates. "But that which is holy is not the same as that which is unholy, but contrary to it; is it not so?" "Assuredly," replied Euthyphron. "Is it not said," asked Socrates, "that the gods quarrel and are at variance; that what some love, others hate? To be holy is to be just. Is the thing holy because they love it, or do they love it because it is holy? .... Is not that which is loved one thing; and that which loves, another?" This was too much for the priest, and he hurried away. "Hold!" cried Socrates; "you are disappointing my earnest hope of learning what things are holy and what are not, in order that I might be released from the accusation of Meletos, and lead a better life in future." But Euthyphron, the reputed intimate of the gods, dared not wait. He had been betrayed into the acknowledgment that holiness or justice was the principle supreme over all, and, therefore, loved by the gods. Such a declaration exposed him likewise to the imputation of sacrilege, and denying the gods of the Pantheon. It is plain, therefore, that Socrates was no worshiper of many gods, as the idea is entertained at the present time. He recognized the One whose emanation permeated higher being, and acknowledged tutelary and other spiritual beings, in subordinate spheres of existence, much as it is now the fashion to recognize angels and their subordinates. Why, then, did Socrates command the offering to be made to Asclepios? He could not have been trifling at the supreme moment. It is equally certain that he who assigned

to Justice a place above all the gods was not, in any vulgar sense, the worshiper of an infinitude of deities. Let us contemplate the reasons which induced him. The priest had gone his way, as happy to escape his interrogator as he was selfcomplacent about his errand. Socrates entered the Hall of Judgment, and heard the charges which had been preferred. He then delivered his famous Vindication. "When your generals assigned me my port in Potidaia, at Amphipolis and Delion, I remained and encountered the danger of death. So when the Deity (Apollo), as I thought and believed, had set me to pass my life in the pursuit of philosophy, and in the examination of myself and others, I was not at liberty, through fear of death or anything else whatever, to desert my post .... This duty has been assigned to me by God, by oracles, by dreams, and every mode by which any divine order has ever been enjoined on men." The rhetor Lysis had prepared a defense, elaborate with legal skill and art, picking flaws in the indictment and pleading with the judges for lenity. But Socrates perceived himself to be prohibited by the inward voice to depart from truth and simplicity, or to seek any advantage by equivocation. When he had been condemned by a bare majority of six, and the penalty of death had been proposed, he declined to acknowledge himself to be in the wrong, to supplicate for mercy, or even to ask for a milder sentence. "Calumny and envy have condemned me," he said. "I shall not act otherwise though I shall have to die many deaths. If I had taken part in money-making, politics, military matters, popular oratory, or public life in any form, I am too upright a man to be safe; but I have labored to do a greater benefit to you all, by endeavoring to persuade each to excel in being good and wise. I deserve for this a public maintenance. I do not know whether death is good fortune or calamity. Shall I choose, then, what I know to be a calamity imprisonment, a slave to the magistrates, or exile, going from city to city? I have been condemned by reason of my lack of audacity and immodest boldness." In all this, however, he attested that he had the approval of his tutelary spirit. "Twice," he declared to Hermogenes, "twice have I attempted to take this matter of my defense under consideration, but the guardian genius always opposed me." He explains this to his judges: "I wish to make known to you the meaning of that which has just now befallen me. The accustomed voice of my guardian spirit, on every former occasion, even in the most trifling affairs, opposed me, if I was about to do anything wrong. What has just happened anyone would think, and it is supposed to be, the extreme of misfortune; yet the divine warning did not interpose when I left home this morning, nor when I came up hither to the place of trial, nor in my address when I was about to say anything, although on former occasions it has frequently restrained me when speaking. All through this proceeding it has never opposed me in anything which I said or did. I know, therefore, that what has befallen me is a blessing, and it is impossible that those of us who think death is an evil, think rightly. The fact which proves this to me is that the accustomed signal would have checked me, except that I had been about to meet with some good. "If death is a sleep in which there is no dreaming, it would be a wonderful gain. Nights passed in sweet sleep are the most pleasant of all, and so the whole future will be but a single night of this character. If, however, death is a removal from one mode of existence to another, from this world to the underworld of the dead, I would be willing to die often. I would spend my time there questioning the people, and ascertaining who among them is wise, as I have here. Surely, for that the judges there do not condemn one to death, and those who live there are happier, in other respects, than those that are here.

To a good man, nothing is a calamity, either while living or when dead; nor is his welfare neglected of God." In this frame of mind he repaired to his prison, and calmly awaited the return of the theoris or sacred boat from Delos, till which period it was not lawful to put him to death. He even refused to escape when his friends had prepared everything for the purpose, and half the people of Athens desired it. Crito himself besought him, pleading that the populace, the great multitude, are ready at any time to do a man the greatest evil unjustly, if he has been calumniated to them. "But," replied Socrates, "I have made a special compact with the Athenians, choosing to dwell here with them, consenting to submit to their government, and, indeed, actually choosing death from them in preference to exile. By violating these agreements I shall compromise my friends, and actually go counter to all the precepts of my life. I seem to hear the laws protesting, as the worshipers of Cybele seem to hear the flutes. The sound hums in my ear, and makes me incapable of hearing anything else. I will pursue this course, for the divine one leads me after this manner." I have sometimes curiously questioned whether Socrates did not actually endeavor to obtain this dismissal from life. Xenophon has declared that, with regard to death, he was no way solicitous to importune his judges, as the custom was with others. On the contrary, he thought it the best time for him to die. That he had thus determined with himself, was still the more evident after his condemnation; for when he was ordered to fix his own penalty, he refused to do it or suffer any one to do it for him, saying that to fix a penalty implied a confession of guilt. "No disgrace can it bring on me," said he, "that others have not seen that I was innocent." This conjecture is rendered plausible from the fact that in primitive tribes, where want is imminent and old age burdensome, it is usual to make way with the aged and infirm, as well as with supernumerary infants. Several of the nations of Greece had these customs. In Ceos it was the practice, when attaining sixty or seventy years of age, to put an end to life by voluntarily drinking hemlock. Socrates could not, however, resort to voluntary suicide. The philosopher, he said, should free his soul as much as he can from communion with the body, but he will not commit violence upon himself, for that is not allowable. This restriction was abrogated, however, when the magistrates took the responsibility. He was at full liberty to expatiate on the advantages of dying while in possession of the physical faculties. "Does it not appear manifest to you," he asks Hermogenes, "that God thinks this the very best time for me to die? I have been second to no one in living uprightly, or even pleasurably. But now, if my existence shall be prolonged, and I am spared to old age, what can hinder infirmities from falling upon me? My sight will grow dim, my hearing heavy; I will become less capable of learning, and more liable to forget what I have already learned; and if, in addition to all this, I shall become sensible of my decay, and bemoan myself on account of it, how can I say that I still lived pleasantly? "It may be too, that God, in his goodness, has appointed for me that my life shall terminate at a time which seems the most seasonable, and in the manner which shall be most eligible; for they who take charge of this matter will permit me to choose the means supposed to be the most easy, as well as free from those lingering circumstances which keep friends in anxious suspense, and fill the mind of the dying man with perturbation. Thus, when nothing offensive is left on the memory of those present, but the man is dissolved while the body is sound, and the mind capable of exerting itself benevolently, who

can say that to die in this way is not most desirable?" The sacred boat returned from Delos, and the friends of Socrates hastened to his prison for the last time. Speedily, after his old method, the conversation was led to the great topic of philosophy, the interior life of man. Does it appear becoming in a lover of Wisdom, he asked, to be anxious about pleasures, as of food and drink, sex, or other bodily delights, like dress or ornament? Not at all. Do the senses of the body, like sight and hearing, convey any real truth to man? It is plain that when the soul endeavors to consider anything, acting in conjunction with the body, it is led astray. It therefore retires as much as possible within itself, taking leave of the body and becoming separate from contact with it, when it endeavors to apprehend the real Wisdom - the knowledge of that which is. "Certainly." "The conclusion, then, is that those who pursue the love of wisdom rightly are studying this matter of dying; and to them, of all men, death is the least formidable. The man who is grieved when about to die is not a lover of Wisdom, but a lover of his body, probably of riches and honor. Fortitude and control over the passions are eminently characteristic of philosophers. "Necessarily so." They who keep their passions in subjection in order to be capable of other pleasures are but bartering the greater for the less; whereas all ought to be bartered for wisdom, the only right coin. True excellence (arete) subsists with wisdom, and a purification from all these things. In like manner, he added, those who instituted the Eleusinian Mysteries taught that the impure and uninitiated would, on their arriving in Hades, find themselves in the mire the primitive matter from which man originated; but the purified would dwell with the gods. "There are many who carry the narthex, but few entheasts." It is not lawful for any one who has not so pursued the love of wisdom and departed this life perfectly pure to pass into the society of the divine beings; but only for the lovers of Wisdom. Thus the discourse went on till the sun began to descend in the sky. Then Crito asked: "How shall we bury you?" "Just as you please," replied Socrates; "provided only that you are able to catch me and I do not escape from you." Then, turning to the others, with a smile he added: "Friends, I cannot persuade Crito that I am Socrates who am now talking with you and methodizing each part of the conversation. He continues to think that I am that same thing which he will presently behold dead. So he asks how he shall bury me. I seem to have talked to him to little purpose, when I argued at such length that when I have drunk the poison I will remain no longer with you, but shall depart to the happy state of the blessed. You must become my sureties to Crito in an obligation contrary to what he undertook for me to the judges. He went bail that I should remain; you must go as sureties to him that when I die I shall not remain, but depart. Then Crito, when he sees my body burned or buried, will not be afflicted, as though I had suffered something dreadful, nor will say: 'Socrates is laid out, carried forth, or is buried.' Be assured, most excellent Crito, that to speak thus improperly is not only blameworthy as to the thing itself, but it likewise occasions injury of some kind to our own souls. Have good courage, then, and say that you bury my body, and bury it in a manner pleasing to you, and as you think is most agreeable to custom." Having drank the mortal draught, he chided his friends for their vehement grieving.

"I sent away the women," said he, "on purpose to avoid such a scene. I have been taught that it is fortunate to have good omens when dying." Having laid down, the servant covered him, and, after a little while, perceiving the final moment near, he pushed away the mantle and gave the charge to his friend: "Crito, I owe it to Asclepios; pay the debt, and be sure that you do not neglect it." "It shall be done," responded the heartbroken Crito; "but tell me, have you more to command?" The noble sage was unable to utter more; a gasp and a convulsion followed, and he had indeed departed. I have judged that Socrates meant more in these words than many conjecture. In the Dialogues preserved or compiled by Plato, he discourses much upon mind, ethics, and human immortality. He sought a criterion by which all propositions could be tested. He exhibited a rare conception of spirituality. It was not a condition induced by mere culture and discipline, according to the knowledge derived from books, teachers and observation. "I do not possess such learning," he said, "but I wish I did." He could stand in the Agora all day, rapt in contemplation and full of the "oversoul". In his discourses with others, he sought to evolve from their minds the conception that error is an unreality, and therefore to be forsaken, while truth alone had a being. Only the spirit, the nous or divine entity, [2] in man might apprehend this. "Essence - that which alone really is - colorless, shapeless and intangible, is visible only to the nous or interior mind which guides the soul." So he compelled a sceptic, by his rigorous questions, to assent to this conclusion: "Veneration alone fits the soul for the communication of divine secrets; and no others attain them except those who consult, adore and obey the Deity." If the soul had no moral reverence and certainty, the life was based on quicksand. He was no raving maniac, agitated by a sacred fury, but one who sought clear thinking rather than clear seeing. The rock should first be found on which to place the substructure of the life. Clear thinking is consistent with holiness and leads to it. There should be a reason for everything that is done, and that reason derived from certainty. Opinion and custom, even the enacting of a statute or the decree of a priest, can never stand in place of the person's own sense and knowledge of right and wrong. So Socrates had acted when a Senator of Athens, and refused obedience to superior magistrates who commanded him to do what he was conscious was wrong. This stubborn integrity, which looked death and disgrace steadfastly in the face, and refused to be awed thereby, which obeyed the interior guide - the divine principle from God - was triumphant in all its encounters. The hemlock did not slay Socrates. But he closed up the book of the former archaic ages and opened a new volume of life, out of which all are judged. Nobody cares what was written; no religion or school of thought goes beyond the pages of Plato. Reading there, they exclaim with a common voice: "The Darkness has passed; The true Light shines!" The skeptical dream of physicists like Democritus, who would create spirit out of material atoms, establish a psychology with names alone and leaving the soul out, and ignore a Cause and a God, were sternly reprehended. "It is all guesswork," said he, "these conclusions about what the earth is made of, and how it was produced. You may speculate about the floor of the firmament, what the stars are, how the winds blow, and whether the world is a colossal tortoise paddling around in the supernal ether, but you can not know

anything about it. We can, however, learn something about ourselves. We can know what virtue is, where peace may be found, whether there is such a thing as justice, as truth, and whether man was made for a higher walk and destiny than a beaver and a goat." What a rebuke to the so-called "exact science" of our day, so unsatisfactory because it is, and inevitably must be, incomplete and inexact. Our scientists explore stars, rivers and rocks in the quest of the material of knowledge; but in their conception God is a figment of the imagination, the soul a region of haze, the law of right something which nobody is sure about, and conscience an echo of passions and desires upon whose voice it is not safe to play. Accordingly, in their purview, our bones are our noblest part, and receive from them the most attention. So reasoned not Socrates; so no philosopher worthy of the title ever reasoned. With him Wisdom was all - the perception of ideas inborn in the interior mind from the Eternal Source, and ascertained by a faculty of vision from which external sense was excluded. All this was shadowed forth in the Eleusinia. The worshipers were first purified and sworn to fidelity. They were afterward permitted to view mythic scenes and exemplars, which impressed the imagination, producing a state of mind favorable to learning somewhat of the inner life of Man. The many were satisfied with awe-inspiring ceremonies and the reverence paid to ancestral spirits. Demeter, represented as the sorrowful Achtheia weeping for her daughter ravished away by the Lord of Death, only impressed such as apprehended what Gautama-Buddha showed the sorrowing mother, that there was a loved one dead in every home. Farewell thou Kora! Joy will come with gay and festive Iachos. The flute of the Korybant and the shout of the multitude exhilarate hearts enfeebled by woe, and even intoxicate the imagination. But how many such, carrying wands and torches, enter the Mystic Cave and come forth epoptic - the true seers of Wisdom? "Few!" replies the initiator; "Many are the called, few the elect!" But philosophy, the Wisdom known by the elect, transcends all; she is justified by her children. In the Eleusinian Rites there is mercy shadowed forth for those who came late. Even the Overlord of the Nabatean Gospel gave full pay to the laborers who worked faithfully, though only from the eleventh hour. When the Great Day of the Festival was over, and the thousands of worshipers had been dismissed, a special rite was observed for the benefit of those who had only just arrived. Herakles had been so favored by EuMolpous at Ageai; and even the later orgy of Iachos, or old Dionysos born anew as a son of the Great Mother, [3] was added to the Eleusinia. Finally, perhaps to blend them all in one, an initiatory ceremony in honor of Asclepios was also instituted. This divinity was Phoenician, the Apollo or Overlord of Palestine. He dwelt in underground temples, often elaborately constructed, and was renowned for wisdom and the marvelous gifts which he bestowed on his worshipers. His shrines were the hospitals of the early world; legions of spirits aided to unroll the scroll of destiny and reveal the arcane sources of disease. His rod and staff comforted the sick and despairing. Having been naturalized in Greece as the son of Apollo, his temples and priests abounded over the country, with rites and mysteries of their own. In due time they were associated with the worship of Demeter and Poseidon at Eleusis. "What the Eleusinia furnished to Greece," says a distinguished writer, "that Socrates furnished to himself. That man who could stand stock still a whole day lost in contemplation, what was the need to him of the Eleusinian veil? The most self-sufficient

man in all Greece, who could find the way directly to himself and to the mystery and responsibility of his own will without the medium of external rites - to whom there were the ever present intimations of his strange divinity - what need to him of the Eleusinian revealings and their sublime self-intuition (autopsia)?" Indeed, Socrates had accomplished in his own career everything which the mystic orgies represented. His stern self-examination was equivalent to the purifying at the First Rites. The sow offered by his favorite pupil Alcibiades, was washed and again returned to her favorite wallow; Critias bore the narthex, but failed at the door of the Sekos [4] of the sorrowing goddess, and so was not born into the truer life; and even the better men generally did not transmit the new light without imparting to it their own prismatic shadow. If there was any exception it was Plato. Socrates himself entered the chamber of Esnum-Asclepios, as we must all go thither, alone. He feared no evil; to him death was not a calamity but a boon. It released him from the body, now an encumbrance to the vigorous soul, which had been seeking to withdraw from it, and transferred him where he might gaze upon the arcane of real Being. This led him to bethink himself of the peculiar offering, and to command Crito to bestow it. It was as though he had said: "I am now an initiate of Asclepios, the god of life, wisdom and healing; the apocrypha of destiny is now becoming plain to me; the apocrypha of the Great Mystery has come." The evening had become the morning, and Crito now knew what his great Master had before remarked his not perceiving - that Socrates was in the Mystic Chamber, in the presence of the Divine Hierophant! A gill of poison cannot extinguish a soul. There may come instead a clairvoyant insight. No more was destiny veiled in the enigma of the Sphinx. As Oedipus had come, Crito need hesitate no longer to give the offering to Aiskulapiu, the son of Zedek, with healing in his wings. Socrates lives - lives not merely in his loyalty to divine ideas and his interior guide, not simply in men's memories or even in their like devotion, but in actual personal immortality - at one with the One. So, too, the word is for ourselves; we shall live in perennial life, beyond Time, with the Infinite. --------[1] The nous or interior mind. In the Cratylos Socrates explains that daemon is a term denoting wisdom; and that every good man is daimonian, both while living and when dead, and is rightly called a daimon. Menandros explicitly declares that "the nous is the daemon," or tutelary. I accordingly accept the tripartite distinction, which makes the psyche or soul the selfhead or individual identity; the nous, spirit, or interior mind, the divine entity or guardian, the deus in nobis; and the body, the seat of the epithumetic principle. Paul, the great Christian Apostle, follows this same distinction, ascribing all evils to the heart or flesh, and supreme good and benefit to the spirit. "In my flesh dwells no good; I delight in the living God after the inward man." - A.W. [2] Anaxagoras taught before Plato and Socrates that the Nous, or Anima Mundi, originated all things. It seems that he borrowed this idea from Egypt, where it was entertained, even the designation nous being apparently the same as nout, the Coptic name of the Divinity as an interior intelligence. The Ionian and Egyptian taught alike. Even the Apostle Paul declared: "We have the nous of Christos," evidently meaning a common

spirit or divine principle actuating them all. - A.W. [3] Demeter, from Sanskrit Devamatr, or Lakohmi, the Mother of Gods. Cybele, or Rhea, the Phrygian goddess, was another representation of the same character, and the worship of both exhibited close resemblances. [4] In the Hebrew sacred books this term is Succoth, a pun on the booths where the worship was celebrated, Suku being the Akkadian designation of the Babylonian Venus or Ista. Her temples were originally subterranean, and hence the term sekos denoted the innermost recess, and by metaphor the womb of the Universe. - The Canadian Theosophist, Vol. 59, no. 6, Jan.-Feb., 1979; The Platonist, April, 1881 --------------------------

The Lost Atlantis * - Alexander Wilder Who has penetrated to the sources of the sea, or passed through the depths of the abyss? Who can guide to the boundaries of the ancient Darkness, or knows the path to her domain? What skald was inspired to write the saga, narrating the exploits of those long forgotten - seemingly lost out of the world's memory? Gladly would we peruse some old Edda chronicling the deeds of these master-spirits that once bustled on this earth of ours, anterior to the dawn of the day indicated by our histories. How fraught with interest would be the annals of the Northman race, ever aspiring to the lordship of the universe; who, as heroes, filled Southern Europe with gods and demigods, and peopled their mythology; who, as Hellenes, subdued the shepherd and agricultural Pelasgians of Greece, Troy,** and perhaps of Eastern Italy; who brought devastation to the heart of the Roman Empire and built the monarchies of Modern Europe. How far our explanations will solve the enigmas of the Past, is a matter of grave question. Parchment has proved too perishable for a record; we must interrogate the stones. Perhaps they will "cry out" and give us a testimony. But even then, we shall need a man who can understand their language - one, perhaps, who had "been in Eden the garden of God." ----------* This paper was written in May, 1856. The attention of the writer had been attracted to the subject from reading a pamphlet entitled "Ancient Egypt." by George R. Glidden, which contained a allusion to the region. ** It is more probable that the inhabitants of Ilion were of a stock akin to the Assyrians. The names of the legendary personages, Ilos, Assaracus, and others seem to imply as much, although other appellations given by Homer are etymologically Aryan. - A. W. ----------We interrogate the naturalist - him to whom the "elder Scripture,"* we would suppose to be "familiar as household words." Of him we learn that Nature has been always restless,

unceasingly busy; that nothing, hardly, which we now see, bears the same form that it once had. Our globe, our solar system, our universe, are ever moving onward, nor know a Sabbath in their labors. Every atom is constantly divesting itself of its older, that it may put on a newer form. This city of Albany was once the bed of a beautiful lakelet; the gentle Hudson river an angry torrent. We ascend the Catskills and see there the evidences that even the "everlasting hills" must inevitably crumble into dust and descend into the valley below. Every mountain seems destined to be brought low, every valley to be filled. Pass to the seashore, and there, too, is change. The ocean is eating away the land, and homestead after homestead, deeded and recorded to "heirs and assigns forever," lies irrecoverably beneath the waves. So the old worlds seem fading out of existence, while corals are assiduously aiding to create new soils, new islands and new continents. Geologists have brought to knowledge the revolutions which our earth has undergone; yet, it is more than possible that they are but slight compared with those just now commencing, which are destined to occur. -----------* Reference may be made to distinguished authority, which shows that there was a region beyond Gibraltar recognized in ancient times. Aristotle described a trans-atlantic island. Theopompos represents Silenos as discoursing about Atlantis to the Phrygians. Plutarch mentions the isle Ogygia, five days' sail westward from Britain, and three others at the northwest. There is "the continent by which the great sea is environed, distant from Ogygia 5,000 stadia." He also tells of ships returning from the Islands of the Blessed in that ocean. Diodoros relates the story of Phoenicians sailing westward to the Islands of Kronos, where were high mountains and a warm climate. He also tells of an Island in the west which the Carthaginians had discovered, and to which they thought to emigrate. Saint Isadore, Strabo, Beda and St. Ambrose described Paradise the original home of Adam and Eve, as being in the West. So many statements must have had a tangible foundation, and be regarded a capable of being verified. * Ezekiel: xxviii, 13, 14. -----------How must this world have looked when the Titans, the Nephelim and giants of old legends, figured in its arena? Did behemoths and mastodons then rule any of these lands? Certainly they had their day and passed into extinction and forgetfulness, leaving their skeletons for monuments to show where they once lived and disported on the earth. We mentioned the ancient Nephelim - "mighty men of old, men of renown." Concerning such as these we have not to enquire. Moses tells of Rephaim in the frontier regions of the Promised Land. Manetho and Eratosthenes assure us that they once swayed the scepter of Egypt. In the stories of the book of Genesis we are told that nations of them served King ChedorIaomer. Others of them are said to have been vanquished in Mount Seir by Esau, the warlike son of Isaac. There is much that is not known about these peoples but which is well worth the learning. The legends of Athens are not devoid of interest. Whether the early Atticans were an autochthonic race or not, certain it is that they were of almost incredible antiquity. The dedication of the city to the blue-eyed goddess Pallas Athena, a North-maiden in her physiognomy, is perhaps from a fancy of a later period. The legend of her conflict with

Poseidon,* "for the supremacy is in evidence. But the story of Atlantis, of which Plato has given us a record, owes its preservation to a tradition of a conflict of its people with the Athenians - a tradition, which the Athenians themselves seem to have known nothing about. We cite the story which is said to have been narrated to Solon, by an Egyptian priest.**

------------* Herodotus: ii, 50. "Of him (Poseidon) the Greeks got their knowledge from the Libyans, by whom he has been always honored, and who were anciently the only people that had a god of the name." The regions about the Mediterranean sea, except Egypt, were regarded as in the domain of Poseidon after his admission into the circle of Olymplan divinities. The wanderings of Odysseus or Ulysses, described by Homer, were In the region subject to him apart from Zeus. - A. W. ** When Psamatik had expelled the Assyrian rulers and made himself king of Egypt, he set aside the former exclusive policy and permitted the Greeks to come Into Egypt. The era of the philosophers had begun, and distinguished men were admitted to instruction at the temples. Solon going thither was for a time the pupil of Sonkhis, the priest of the temple of Neith et Sais, then the royal residence. The account of Atlantis appears to have been preserved in his family, to which both Plato and Kritias belonged. ------------"First of all let us recollect that it is about nine thousand years since war was proclaimed between those dwelling outside the Pillars of Hercules (Gibraltar) and all those within them, which war we must now describe. Of the latter party this city of Athens was the leader, and conducted the whole war; and of the former, the Kings of the Atlantic Island which we said was once larger than Libya (Northern Africa) and (Southwestern) Asia, but now, sunk by earthquakes, a mass of impervious mud which hinders all those sailing on the vast sea from effecting a passage hither. "To the gods was once locally allotted the whole earth, and that too, without contention; for it would not be reasonable to suppose that the gods are ignorant of what suits each of themselves, or, that fully aware of what is rather the property of others, they would try to get possession of it through strife. Obtaining then a country, they reared it, as their possessions, flocks and herds; and by working on the soul they governed the mortal by leading him according to their own mind. Hephestos and Athena* having a common nature, received this region of Attika as their common allotment, as being naturally familiar with and well adapted to virtue and wisdom; and having produced worthy men, autochthones or natives of the soil, they arranged the order of their government. Of these men the names are preserved; though through their death and the long lapse of time all memory of their deeds has perished. The race that survived were unlettered mountaineers, who knew the names of the ruling people, but very little about their deeds. In this way were preserved their names without their history. ------------

* These two divinities have been generally known to us by their names as Roman gods, Vulcan and Minerva. The Egyptian priests also attempted to identify them with Ptah, the god of Memphis, and Neith, the goddesse of Sais. But these identifications are chiefly fictitious, as the characteristics of the several divinities do not closely correspond. Hence writers like Grote, Gladstone, Max Muller and others disregard the practice and in most cases write the names as they were originally used. Thus we have Zeus, Hera, Leto, Aphrodite, Poseidon, instead of Jupiter, Juno, Latona, Venus, Neptune. -----------"Solon said that the (Egyptian) priests, in describing the wars then waged, gave to those who were engaged in them such names as Kekrops, Erekhtheus, Erikhthonios, Erysikhthon; also the names of women. Besides, the figure and image of the goddess show that at that time both men and women entered in common on the pursuits of war; as in compliance with that custom an armed statue was dedicated to the goddess by the people of that day - a proof that all animals that consort together, females as well as males, have a natural tendency to pursue in common every suitable duty. "In early times this country (Attika) had its boundary at the Isthmus (of Corinth) and on the side of the other continent as far as the heights of Kithaeron and Parnes, with Oropia on the right, and the Asopos, as a seaport limit, on the left. By the valor of this region the whole earth was vanquished (excelled), because it was then able to support the numerous army, collected from the people around. .... "As many and extensive deluges happened in that period of nine thousand years, the earth that was loosened and that fell in these times and under these circumstances, did not as elsewhere, aggregate to form any elevation worth mentioning, but ever eddying round, vanished in the deep.... Such was once the natural state of this country, and it was cultivated by real husbandmen, actually practicing their calling, lovers of honor and generous-minded, having a most excellent soil, great abundance of water, and a climate admirably tempered. It was at this time that the city of Athens was founded.... "Poseidon, taking as his lot the Atlantic Island, beget children by a mortal woman, and settled in a spot on the island which we will describe.... He also begot and brought up five pairs of twin male children; and after dividing all the Atlantic Island into ten parts, he bestowed on the first born of the eldest pair his mother's dwelling and allotment about it this being the largest and best; and he appointed him king of all the rest, making the others subordinate rulers, and giving to each the dominion over many people and an extensive territory. To the eldest, the king, he gave the name of Atlas; and from him as the first sovereign, both the island and sea were termed Atlantic.... All these, and their descendants, dwelt for many generations, as rulers in the sea of islands; and further extended their empire to all the country as far as Egypt and Tyrrhenia." (Italy) - Kritias: 4-9. The wealth of this dynasty is described as having been more abundant than had ever before been known. The island had many mines. The orichalkon was found there a metal not now known.* A vast number of nutritious fruits were produced; elephants** and other animals were numerous. The arts were cultivated to a high degree of perfection. The subjected peoples of Europe and Africa paid a large tribute. The government consisted of ten confederated states, as established by Poseidon. For ages virtue, happiness and wealth reigned in the Atlantic Island. At length avarice and the lust of power

swerved them from their ideal rectitude. But we will cite again the old story: ------------* Many conjectures have been put forth in regard to the metal here named. The Greek term for copper is chalkos, but this hardly meets the sense of the statement. The name, orichalkos, however, seems to mean "desired," implying value exceeding that of gold. ** Those who suppose Atlantis to have been the American continent, or territory contiguous to it, may find some explanation of this in the fact that the mammoth and mastodon, once abundant here, were of the elephant race. ------------"Listen, now, Sokrates, to a story very strange indeed, but in every respect true, as it was related by Solon, the wisest of the seven. * .... "In Egypt, in the Delta, where the streams of Egypt are divided, is the Saitical region, the chief city of which is Sais, whence sprung King Amasis.** Its deity is called in Egyptian, Neith - in Greek, Athena - and the people accordingly are great friends of the Athenians. Solon was received very honorably by them. On enquiring of the priests about ancient affairs, he perceived that neither himself nor the Greeks possessed, so to speak, any antiquarian knowledge at all. He once undertook to describe those events which had happened among us in days of yore, when one of the priests, an extremely aged man, exclaimed: 'Solon, Solon, you Greeks are always children, and there is not an aged Greek.... The transactions which you have related differ little from children's fables. In the first place, you speak of only one Deluge of the earth,*** whereas there have been many before. In the next place, you are unacquainted with the most noble and excellent race of men who once inhabited your country, from whom your whole present inhabitants are descended, though only a small remnant of this admirable people are now remaining.**** Your ignorance in this matter results from the fact that their posterity for many generations died without having the use of letters. For, long before the Chief Deluge, there existed a city of Athenians, regulated by the best laws both in military and other matters, whose noble deeds are said to have been the most excellent of all that we have heard to exist under heaven. ----------* The Seven Sages of Greece, before the rise of the Philosophers. The "Seven Wise Men" as enumerated by Plutarch, were Solon of Athens, Bias of Priene, Thales of Miletos, Anacharsis the Skythian, Kleobulos of Lindos, Pittakos of Mitylene, and Chilo of Lecedemon. Other writers include Perlander of Corinth instead of Anacharis, who was not Greece or Ionia. ** Amasis or aah-mes, the second of the name, became king of Egypt after the deposing of Apries or the Pharoah Hophra, by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, for instigating the revolt of Zedekiah, the subject-king of Judea. (See Jeremiah xxxvii; xliii, 10-13; xliv, 29, 30.) He took great pains to cultivate the friendship of the Greeks, and caused the priests to admit Tales, Pythagoras, Solon and others to their instruction. *** The deluge of Deukalion is described by ancient Greek writers. It was probably the opening of a great interior sea at the north, by an earthquake, to the Mediterranean,

flooding the countries of Greece, creating the Aegean sea and converting a large territory into an archipelago with numerous islands. **** Herodotos: i, 57. "The Athenians who were certainly Pelasgians, must have changed their language at the same time that they passed into the Hellenic body." ------------"'Your state and ours were formed by the same goddess, yours having a priority of a thousand years over ours. The annals of our city have been preserved eight thousand years in our Sacred Writings.... Many and mighty deeds of your state are here recorded, and call forth our wonder. There is one surpassing them all; for these writings relate what a prodigious force your city once overcame when a mighty warlike power, rushing from the Atlantic Sea, spread itself with hostile fury over all Europe and Asia.* That Sea was then navigable, and had an island fronting that mouth which you call Pillars of Hercules; and the island was larger than Libya and Asia (Minor) put together. There was a passage from it for travelers to the rest of the islands, and from those islands to the whole opposite continent that surrounds the sea. For, as respects what is within the mouth here mentioned, it (the Mediterranean) appears to be a bay with a kind of narrow entrance; and that sea is a true sea, and the land that surrounds it may most truly and correctly be termed a continent. -----------* It is not altogether improbable that this account relates to the same event as has been preserved in the tradition of the Amazons. They are described as coming from Mauritania or Morocco, marching through Egypt, which contained a kindred people, and passing onward over Asia Minor, invading Greece. One tradition credits them with establishing Mystic Rites in different places. -----------"'In this Atlantic Island there existed a powerful confederacy of sovereigns, who had conquered the entire island, together with many others, and also parts of the continent. Besides this, they had subjected the inland parts of Africa as far as Egypt, and of Europe as far as Tyrrhenia (Italy). The whole of this force, being confederated, undertook at one blow to enslave your country and ours, and all the territory lying within the mouth. At this period your country was universally celebrated for its courage and strength; for surpassing all others in greatness and marvelous skill, sometimes taking the lead of all the Grecians, and at others, left alone by their defection, and thus involved in extreme danger, it still prevailed, vanquished the assailants, protected those who were not enslaved, and for the rest of us who dwelt within the Pillars of Hercules it ensured the amplest liberty. "'Afterward violent earthquakes and deluges brought speedy destruction. In a single day and night the whole of your warlike race was swallowed up by the earth, and the Atlantic Island itself was plunged beneath the sea, disappearing entirely. Since then that sea is neither navigable nor capable of being explored, being blocked up by the great depth of mud which the sinking island produced.'" - Plato, Timaios, 4-6. This story is referred to by several writers, some going so far as to declare it a fable. It would, perhaps, be demanding too much credulity to require us to believe it all fictitious. We pause, therefore, to enquire whether it was plausible. The story of the invasion does

not greatly conflict with those of the old irruptions into the known world of the ancients. We have seen an attempt to show that the Atlantean people were ancient Northmen, who had sailed, as at subsequent periods, around the European coast and come into the Mediterranean - a circumstance which led the Egyptians to suppose that they were from some unknown territory not far from the Strait of Gibraltar. Others still, and we have been inclined to favor the opinion, have supposed that our own Western Continent, older than the Eastern by ages, was the real Atlantis that sent invaders to Europe and Africa long before history began. The subsequent dark period, during which the memory of this great people was well-nigh lost, would account for the declaration that the territory was submerged by a catastrophe not widely different in character from that which overthrew Sodom, Pompeii and Euphemia. It is certain that in Spanish America hoary-headed antiquity had a splendid home. Remains of cities, architecture resembling the Pelasgic, ornaments like those worn by the Trojans and Greeks, religious emblems* - all bespeak such to be the most reasonable solution of the enigma. Stucco work and paintings resembling Italian frescoes have been found in Central America. Trees a thousand years old are growing over ancient palaces. In Yucatan have been found ruins of magnificent houses, adorned with fresco paintings of blue and green, apparently fresh. The skulls of men of the ancient races have been examined, containing teeth, some plugged and others artificial. Mines have been opened which had been wrought by the laborers of that remote period. The sacred lotus flower was also found among the sculptures. Indeed, it must be conceded that there are very plausible reasons for supposing that a continent or vast island, or perhaps a former part of our continent, once occupied a large portion of the Atlantic Ocean. Clavigero declares that between Brazil and Africa are seen remains of a sunken body of land; that they are also seen at the Cape Verde Islands and their vicinity, and he cites the sand-banks found by Bauche. The conformation of our shores indicates a sinking of the land, particularly along the Gulf of Mexico. It may be that the space now occupied by that body of water was once solid earth, of which the West India Islands are now all that is left. It is no great stretch of fancy to suppose the Azore, Canary and Cape de Verde Islands to have in like manner contributed the mountainous and higher portions of the lost Atlantis. Immense quantities of sea-weed may be seen floating in the water all along that region of the ocean.** -----------* Not only the bird, the cross and kindred emblems, and even the pyramid, have been noted, but the Swastika, now accredited to the Buddhists, yet found by Schliemann at ancient Troy, and also Norway. ** The body of still water in the midst of the North Atlantic is here alluded to. It received from Spanish navigators the name of "Sargasso Sea," on account of the vast quantity of sea-weed with which it abounds. It is elliptical in form, and has an area almost as large as Europe. It lies between 20' and 30' north latitude, and between 30' and 60' west longitude from Greenwhich. It is never navigated, and in it is collected a large proportion of the drift or wreck which floats about the ocean. ------------Every student in the classics knows of Atlas, king in the extreme West, who held the

sky on his shoulders. It may be this was a recollection of that ancient, wise and opulent people whom the ocean buried, leaving to the storm to chant their requiem, and Teneriffe to stand as their monument. If the souls of the dead beneath the waters and their inhabitants could speak, they might tell the story. The matter may be veiled in the thick cloud that conceals the primeval Past. Yet it may also be permitted to mortals to learn the matter; and the lords of the universe, restless as is Nature herself, may yet know the secret history which old Ocean hides beneath the waves. (The Word, vol. 3, no. 5, Aug., 1906) ----------------

THE PARABLE OF ATLANTIS - KRITIAS-TIMAIOS by Alexander Wilder, M.D. The name of Kritias, which Plato prefixed to the last of the Dialogues, was by no means popular in Athens. Belonging to one of the most honored families, his career had not been worthy, or of benefit to his country. For a time Kritias had been one of the followers of Socrates, but upon being remonstrated with for his gross misconduct, he turned from his teacher, and even became a bitter enemy. Taking part in some of the revolutions after the death of Pericles, Kritias was banished from Athens. He returned, however, some years afterward, at the time that Lysander entered the city, and was appointed a member of the Council of Thirty, which had been created to frame a new constitution for the city. His ascendancy was characterized by the capital execution of several thousand individuals. He issued an edict forbidding lectures and discourse upon philosophy and liberal learning. At the end of four months the Athenians regained the control of public affairs and Kritias was slain in a partisan conflict. Despite the apparent incongruity of representing him as sustaining friendly relations with Socrates, whom he actually had endeavored to involve in serious difficulty and peril, it was evidently in the mind of Plato to leave a remembrance of him which would be more favorable, showing characteristics of real merit, and perhaps to relieve his name from somewhat of the obloquy resting upon it. He was an uncle of the philosopher and had endeavored to introduce his nephew into the public service and otherwise promote his welfare. Possibly one of the reasons for his hostility to Socrates had been for his influence in attracting the young man from politics to philosophy; and it may be that Plato himself, though he had refused to enter public life under the conditions then prevailing, nevertheless cherished gratitude for the efforts in his behalf; and perhaps there were also considerations of family affection, which, indeed, in those days were regarded as of transcendent importance. Socrates had been represented in The Republic as having described the commonwealth as it should be constituted, how its citizens should be reared and instructed, and what is required for the public defense and for the permanency and welfare of the entire community. Kritias, who has been a silent listener, is now mentioned by him as being thoroughly informed in these matters, and begins to tell of an Athens of many

thousand years before, that had been established on such principles, and had maintained them successfully and alone, in a war between the peoples of Greece and Atlantis. He gives way, however, to the philosopher Timaios, whose extended account of the origin of the universe, the human race and other inhabitants, has already been noticed. He then follows in his turn with a record which had been preserved in the family of Solon, and declared to be in every respect true. When Solon had completed the remodeling of the government of Athens and observed the effect of his changes, he made a journey to Egypt. The former restrictions upon foreigners had been relaxed, and at the order of the king, Amosis II, who lived at Sais, he was admitted to the instructions which were given at the temple of the goddess Neith.* Endeavoring to draw them out in relation to matters of antiquity he affected to boast of the progenitors of the Hellenic peoples. "Ah, Solon, Solon," responded the oldest priest of the group, "you Greeks are nothing but boys, and there is not a Greek of any age really mature. You have no traditions, no learning that is of any great antiquity." Then the old man went on to tell of many great deluges, many devastations by catastrophe and volcanic action, remarkable changes in the configuration of the sky and other wonderful events. ----------* The names, "Sais" and "Neith," are words of two syllables, the vowels not being diphthonged, are to be pronounced separately. ----------Then, he adds, there was an Athens, which had been founded nine thousand years before and a thousand years before Sais itself. It was a model city, and its customs had been such as the Saites themselves had been eager to copy. The goddess herself, NeithAthena, the tutelary alike of each of the cities, had established them. There were the sacred class devoted to religion and learning; the craftsmen of different kinds, who meddled with none outside their guild; the shepherds, huntsmen and tillers of the soil. There were also the soldiers who followed no other calling. Likewise, in regard to the superior knowledge, the law took cognizance of it from the beginning, not only in respect to all the universe, but even to divination and the medical art with regard to hygiene, and hence from these divine subjects to human affairs generally and the branches of learning connected with them. The goddess of wisdom selected the site of Athens because she foresaw that its wholesome climate would favor the growth of a superior race of men, wise like herself. Then under these auspices, and what is better, under a good government,* there sprang up a people surpassing all others in every thing meritorious, as became those who were the offspring and under the tutelage of the gods. Nine thousand years before, says the Egyptian priest, there existed a state of war over the known world. Beyond the Pillars of Heracles the ocean was at that time open and navigable for galleys, and there existed fronting the continent an island larger than Libya and Asia Minor together. There were likewise other islands which were in alliance with it, and they were subject to a powerful confederation of kings, who also held the western regions of Europe and Africa under their dominion. At that period Athens was foremost among the commonwealths of Greece. It was distinguished for the superiority of its population in moral stamina, in the arts, and in war. At first that city was leader of the Greek peoples, but finally they all stood aloof, leaving

Athens to maintain alone the conflict with the kings of Atlantis. The invaders were routed, and independence was thus preserved for the free states, and won for all others within the pillars of Heracles. Afterward there came a succession of violent earthquakes and floods. In a single day and night the people of Athens were buried beneath the earth, and the island of Atlantis was engulfed in the waters. Hence only mud remains where that region once existed, and the ocean where it existed formerly is neither navigable nor even accessible. -----------* Konfucius was journeying with his disciples through a distant region. Meeting a woman by a well, he questioned her of her husband, her father and other kindred. They had all been killed by a tiger, she replied. "Why," demanded the sage, "why do you not remove from a region that is infested by such a ferocious beast." "Because," replied she, "we have a good government." Turning to his disciples, the sage remarked: "See, a bad government is more feared than a ravenous tiger." -----------According to the ancient legends the whole earth was originally apportioned among the gods. There was no contest among them in order that one might seize the domain of the other. But each one occupied the portion allotted, peopled it, and attended to the welfare of those under his charge. The gods did not coerce their subjects arbitrarily, but, like skilful pilots, led them by persuasions. The domain of each was assigned according to his peculiar character. As Hephaestos and Athena, having the same father and disposition, were also alike in the love of wisdom and liberal art, Athens was assigned jointly to them as being adapted naturally to superior excellence and intelligence. Here they planted the antochthones, natives of the soil, making the men good and orderly. Owing to the devastations of the floods the records of these times were lost. The survivors could not read, and hence only names were preserved. These included women as well as men, because both sexes engaged alike in the pursuits of war. In accordance with that usage they dedicated a statue of the goddess armed as a soldier, in recognition of the fact that all living beings associating together, female, as well as male, have the natural ability common to each race to follow every meritorious pursuit. The dominion of Athens, as the priest declared, then extended over all the territory of Attika. The region was much larger than in later periods, for floods had not then washed away the earth, and the soil was very productive. The population was composed of craftsmen in the various callings, and of those who labored at agriculture. There was also the noble caste of warriors, twenty thousand in number, who had been set apart originally by the divine founders of the Commonwealth. Its members lived apart from the others, on the higher ground around the temples. They held their possessions in common, eating at a common table, and sustaining no familiar relations with the other citizens in the lower districts, except as was necessary to procure food and other matters of necessity. From this caste were taken the guardians of the commonwealth, the defenders of the country, the rulers and magistrates. Such being their quality, and their administration of affairs, both in their own community and in the rest of Greece being just, they were distinguished over Europe and Asia, both for personal beauty and moral excellence. Kritias insists accordingly

that the Athens of that far-off time was like the commonwealth which had been described in the philosophical dialogue. When at the beginning the whole earth was apportioned among the gods to assure their worship and sacrifices, the Atlantic island was in the allotment of Poseidon.* Among the natives of Atlantis was Evenor, whose daughter, Kleito, won the regard of the divine overlord. Poseidon accordingly constructed a residence for her on the island, surrounding it with high belts of land alternating with other zones of sea. For at that time ships and navigation were not known. She became the mother of ten sons, in five pairs, on whom Poseidon bestowed dominion. The oldest was placed over his mother's home and the region about it, which was the largest and most desirable in the island. He was also made king over the whole territory. The other brothers also received rich allotments and were appointed to sovereignty in subordination to the eldest. He also gave them names, which Kritias explains as having been translated into Greek. The designation of the oldest brother, Atlas, may evoke some question. Not only is it the name of a range of mountains in Africa, but the term Atlan is also used for titles of places in America. ----------* Mr. Robert Brown, Jr., of Barton-on-Humber, England, has given in his little treatise, "Poseidon," a very full account of the parts of the globe anciently regarded as subject to this divinity and not to Zeus. He was regarded as overlord in the countries of the Mediterranean and Archipelago, except in Egypt and parts of Greece. The voyages of Ulysses or Odysseus were supposed to have taken place in the region allotted to him. Hence the defiance of Polyphomos, the Kyklops, to the authority of Zeus. The voyages of Aeneas were in that region, and it is noteworthy that the principal personages and monsters which were fabled to have been slain by Theseus and Herakles were connected with him, indicating by allegory a change in religion as well as in civil government. ----------These princes and their descendants, we are told, dwelt for many generations as rulers in the "Sea of Islands," and extended their dominion to the Continent, including in it all Libya as far as Egypt and Europe clear to Italy. The family of Atlas surpassed all the others. The oldest son succeeded the father, and they all possessed wealth beyond the power of computing. Much of this was procured from foreign countries, but their principal riches was obtained in the island itself. Atlantis abounded in rich ores. One of these, orichalkon, or mountain copper, was next in value to gold itself. Kritias declares that only the name was known; nevertheless one may ask whether platinum was meant. There was also wood produced in abundance suitable for building and other purposes; and also grass and other plants for the food of animals, both wild and tame. There was even a profusion of food for elephants, of which there were great numbers. Nature, with the aid of human ingenuity thus supplied in plenty whatever would excite the palate, please the sick or gratify the fancy. The enterprise and industry of the population are glowingly described. Atlantis abounded in temples, magnificent houses, and in ports and docks for commerce. The belts of water with which Poseidon had surrounded the metropolis were bridged over, thus giving access to the royal residence. A canal was likewise constructed, three hundred feet wide and a hundred feet deep, extending from the ocean to the outermost zone of water.

Tunnels were also made through the belts of land so that the zone of water became a harbor for vessels. A high wall of stone was erected at the outermost belt of land which surrounded the metropolis, and other walls of similar structure were built at the interior circuits. The outer wall was covered with a coating of copper; the next wall was coated with silver, and the innermost wall with orichalkon, which shone with a ruddy glow. The stone with which these walls were built had been quarried on the central island, and there were three kinds, white, red and black. Many of the buildings were in plain style, but in others the three kinds of stone were ingeniously combined so as to produce an agreeable effect. At the beginning a magnificent building was erected as a dwelling for the divinity and for the ancestors. Each monarch as he came to power added to its embellishments, endeavoring to excel those who had preceded him, till it became wonderful for size and the beauty of the works. Kritias proceeds now to describe the wealth and luxury of the people of Atlantis. Inside the citadel was the temple dedicated to Kleito and Poseidon. It was surrounded by an enclosure of gold. There were brought to it every year contributions from the ten principalities, and sacrifices were presented to each of the divinities. There was also a temple to Poseidon himself, over six hundred feet long and three hundred wide, built and adorned with Oriental splendor. The body of the edifice was coated with silver, and the pinnacles with gold. Inside of the building, the roof was of ivory; and it was adorned everywhere with gold, silver and orichalkon. All the other parts of the wall and floor were lined with orichalkon. There were numerous statues of gold. The god himself was represented standing upon a car attached to which were six winged horses, his head touching the roof, as he stood. A hundred Nereids riding on dolphins were by him, indicating that he was the tutelary of the ocean as well as of the seismic territories. Other statutes likewise, some the gift of private individuals and others presented from the subordinate princedoms were placed there, part of them inside and part outside the building. In short, the whole was of a style and magnificence corresponding with the government and the splendor which attended the public worship. The principal island abounded with springs, both cold and hot, which the inhabitants employed for their private fountains. They built their houses around them, placing tanks in them, some for cold water to use in summer and others for hot water in winter. The baths for the royal family were apart from the others, and those for the women separate from those of the men. There were also baths for the horses and cattle, all of which were kept scrupulously clean. The stream of water which flowed from this region, was conducted to the Grove of Poseidon, a sacred domain, where were trees of every kind, growing to prodigious size and height. The water was carried thence by aqueducts to the circles outside. On the island were many temples dedicated to different divinities, and likewise public gardens and places of exercise, some for men and some for horses. There was a racecourse in the largest island, over a furlong wide and extending the whole way around the circumference for contests of speed between the horses. There were barracks for the troops; part in the belt of land next the citadel, and part inside, near the royal quarters. The docks were filled with triremes and naval stores. Such were the conditions about the royal residence. Crossing the three harbors, one came to a wall which went completely around, beginning from the sea and fifty furlongs

from the outermost harbor near the metropolis. This enclosed both the entrance of the canal and the entrance to the ocean. This area was covered with buildings densely crowded together. The canal and harbor were always full of vessels, and thus there was an incessant din kept up day and night. The rest of the country differed in many particulars. The whole region had a high elevation above the level of the sea. There was an extensive plain immediately surrounding the city, which was encircled by a range of mountains sloping toward the sea. The country was of oblong shape extending over three thousand stadia (or about forty miles) and about two thousand directly across. It lay toward the south, and so was sheltered from the north. The mountains were numerous and beautiful, and there were many villages, rivers, lakes, and meadows, which supplied food in abundance, and likewise wood suitable for all kinds of work. A deep canal extended around the plain, ten thousand furlongs in length. It received the water from the mountains, and winding round the plain, discharged it into the ocean. Other canals were also constructed for transportation of wood and commercial products and likewise for irrigation in summer. The public defense was provided by a militia system carefully arranged. The plain on the island was divided into sixty thousand lots of the dimension of a stadium (or 660 feet) each way. Then it was ordered that of the men fit for service each individual commander should have an allotment, a hundred stadia in extent. In the mountainous districts and the rest of the country was also a large population, and to every man was assigned a lot by the commander. Each of these commanders was required to furnish the sixth part of a war-car, two horses, a two-horse car without a seat, a car-driver with a fighting man, also two armed soldiers, two archers, two stingers, besides light-armed men, stone-shooters and javelin-hurlers, with four sailors so as to man twelve hundred vessels. The other nine sovereignties had arrangements that were somewhat different. The institutions of government continued as they had been arranged from the beginning. Each of the ten kings ruled individually in his own district and commonwealth. All was conducted according to the ordinances of Poseidon. The first kings had also recorded their ordinances on a tablet of orichalkon which was deposited in the temple of that divinity. Every fifth or sixth year they assembled there in council, in which each took an equal part for the general welfare. They made investigation into the procedures of each in his own dominion, and judged them accordingly. In order to assure the faithful submission of each they sacrificed a bull beside the inscribed regulations. Then was an oath written there denouncing execrations on the disobedient. Making each a libation of the blood of the animal, they renewed the oath to do justice, to punish offenders rigidly, never to transgress the laws, and never to rule or obey any ruler except according to the laws. Then having partaken of supper together, they dressed themselves in robes of dark blue color, and proceeded to scrutinize each other's procedures of administration. Their decisions in each case were inscribed on a golden tablet, which was deposited in the temple together with their robes of office. The ten kings were obligated not to make war on one another, but to give their aid in case of any movement to exterminate any royal family. The supreme dominion over the whole was thus assigned to the Atlantic family, but a king was not permitted to put any of them to death without approval of half the others.

For many generations, so long as the inherited nature of the god their ancestor remained to aid them, they continued obedient to the laws and held in affectionate regard their kindred divine parentage. For they were possessed of a genuine high-mindedness and noble principles, and also combined mildness with discretion in incidental matters and in their relations with one another. They held everything in low esteem except it was meritorious; thought lightly of riches, and were not intoxicated by luxury. Being thus circumspect in conduct, they were quick to perceive that all these benefits are increased by friendship combined with virtue; but that when too eagerly sought after and overvalued, they became corrupt and worthless. To such consideration as this, and to the divine nature which continued inherent in them, was due their great prosperity. But eventually the divine quality which was hereditary in them was effaced by much and frequent intermingling in nuptial union with the mortal element; and so the moral character common to other men became ascendant. They became unable to cope with events, and began also to behave unbecomingly. To those who could discern, they appeared to have parted with their most excellent qualities, and to have become ignoble and base. Yet though they were greedy and oppressive, they seemed to those who were unable to appreciate true blessedness, to be in the highest degree happy and fortunate. It was then that Zeus, the supreme God who rules by laws, and is able to descry these things, perceived a noble race involved in wretched conditions. He resolved to call it to account, in order that its members might again be made watchful and return to the sense of what is right. Accordingly he assembled all the gods in council in their most holy habitation. This being at the centre of the universe, commands a view of everything belonging to the region of change below. Having collected them together he proceeded to announce his purpose. Here the story of Kritias abruptly concludes and a sentence is left unfinished. There is a tradition that Plato's death took place while engaged in writing; and as the trilogy is unfinished, it would appear as though this was the point at which his work was interrupted. Perhaps, however, he was in the habit of writing his composition as he had matter and opportunity, and was awaiting the moment at which to resume. Modern critics are generally agreed in declaring the story a myth. Yet it was anciently believed by many to be substantially the record of actual fact. The present condition of the Atlantic ocean at a distance beyond the Strait of Gibraltar, seems to indicate that the tale of the submergence of large islands at that region is not without plausibility. Other ancient writers have accepted the belief of a populous country, somewhere in that direction; and Mr. J. D. Baldwin in his treatise on "Prehistoric Nations," cites from Pere de Bourbourg, to show the existence of a dominion in Central America greatly resembling that of Atlantis. There may be as much unwisdom in the ignotum pro absurdo as in ignotum pro magnifica. Parables are not altogether fictitious narratives. Occult symbolism often employs peculiar names, historic occurrences, and analogous matters for its purposes, and even intermingles its problems with them. It is not at all necessary in ascribing a figurative character to the story of Atlantis, to doubt the genuineness of the legend respecting it. That may be left wisely to future exploration. In this dialogue, the former Athens is indicated as a model government where the best of the citizens, the aristoi, managed all the public affairs. Kritias accordingly declares

it to be such a commonwealth as had been depicted in The Republic. He intermingles allusions incident to its history, such as the leading of the other cities of Greece, and sometimes as fighting alone, as was the case in the long conflict with Persia. Atlantis is described as a confederation of kingdoms, such as Greece may have been in the early periods. It has Poseidon for its overlord, as did most of the Grecian states, and the monarchies which deteriorated to corrupt and unendurable despotisms. The overthrow of these is represented in legends by the exploits of Theseus and Herakles; and the story of Atlantis seems to have been brought to an analogous period of such a character. In the rival nations, Athens and Atlantis, are likewise symbolic representations of man in his moral and spiritual conditions. In the Athenian commonwealth he is faultless, his tastes and talent are kept employed and his several relations personal and social, are observed after the most exemplary manner. For the ideal state has its correspondent likeness in the ideal man; and the influence of that man and the ideal extend over the whole earth. Atlantis in like manner represents man in the other phase of character. We have the spectacle of ten kings, sons of Poseidon, ten being the number denoting completeness. As Poseidon ruled his domain by arbitrary law, so the dominion is strictly arranged. All that is needed is provided and arranged. Every want is met, every desire anticipated. So long as the hereditary divine quality and its influence are dominant all goes on well. But as with man when developing into adult life, there comes admixture from without. There are lapses from primitive integrity. As flatterers and time servers do not take notice of this in a monarch, so the individual is apt not to be conscious of serious dereliction in himself. Only those capable of discerning the spirit, the divinely illuminated, perceive the fall and its accompaniments. There are both an Athens of unblemished fame and an enfeebled, demoralized Atlantis in every human being. "So," says Paul, "with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin." To this point, the speaker draws our attention. What is beyond is left for conjecture. The catastrophe of Atlantis has been told, but only as a physical occurrence. It is also added that Zeus himself, the supreme Arbiter, is about to take in hand the correcting of the unrighteous conditions and restoration to primeval order. Thus we have the problem; it is ours individually to solve. (The Word, Vol. 3, pp. 82-92, May, 1906) -------------------

The Ideal Structure Completed Sequel to The Republic - Alexander Wilder A practice of the dramatic writers of ancient Greece included their productions in a trilogy, each being complete in itself and at the same time holding a relation to the others which enabled and required them to be exhibited in their proper order. The writings of

Plato, being in dialectic form, are subject accordingly to a similar arrangement. In this way, his great work, the "Republic" is entire in itself, while the two dialogues the "Timaeos" and "Kritias" follow as by natural sequence as relating to the same subject. While the conditions which are described in the ideal community are fully represented with the results of virtue and ill-doing in the subsequent periods of existence, the endeavor is made to add to the completeness of the account. We are reminded of the analogy to the rules for composing a puran or religious treatise as required by Indian custom. It must describe the founding of the universe, and follow with an account of some particular region and the people dwelling there. Much of the sacred literature of other countries appears to have been constructed in this way. The individuals who were represented as participating in the first of these discourses have no place in the continued discussions. Those who take part now are older and graver men, who had, however, been silent listeners on the day before. Sokrates is accordingly by a brief recapitulation of what had been said respecting the ideal city, its conditions and inhabitants. Kritias calls his attention to an account given by a priest of Egypt to Solon, of a people on the island-continent of Atlantis, whose polity and administration had been similar to what he was describing As, however, there was present with them a visitor of distinction, Timaeos, of Locris in Italy, who was skilled in astronomic knowledge, it was regarded as more becoming that he should speak first. He might describe the creation of the universe, the origin of the infinite variety of things, ending with the history of human beings. The ingenuity of Plato in this introducing of the topics of this discourse is admirable. One of the charges against Sokrates had been the introducing of new doctrines. This point is evaded by designating a foreigner as the teacher in this discussion. Kritias also, who, though an uncle of Plato, was the bitter enemy of Sokrates, is described as conspicuously bringing him forward for the purpose. Examples of analogous character are found among the dramatic writers. Timaeos begins by announcing as first of all, The Absolute,* that which always is and never comes into objective existence; and which is always coming into existence and manifesting, but never possessed of real being. The former aspect is comprehended by the superior mental perception, together with reason; the latter is accepted as matter of opinion as manifest objectively and ceasing to be so manifest, yet never absolute. The universe, meaning the sky and all the creation, came thus into existence as the work and offspring of the Divine Fashioner. But to discover the Maker and Father of this All,** and likewise his work, and to tell every one what is discovered, cannot be done. There must be ears to hear, a heart and understanding to comprehend, else the words will sound idle, unmeaning and absurd. In this work, the Creator*** considered only what is permanent and eternal. Hence it is the most beautiful of all things, being adapted perfectly to its purpose, and he is the best of causes. Existing in this way the cosmic world is the copy of the eternal region. Every individual object in it therefore corresponds and symbolizes some principle or quality in the world beyond our senses as words symbolize the objects of which they are interpreters. We must distinguish accordingly between the objects and the permanent ideas of which they are representative. -----------

* Greek to on - to on - being, as contrasted with existence derived from an origin superior to itself. ** Greek to pan to pan, the all. In this dialogue the terms ouranoz ouranos, and kospos, kosmos, kosmoz or universe, are used as meaning the same general idea. *** The Greek, Dhmiourgos demiourgos; the framer or fashioner. -----------"Let us ask the cause," said Timaeos, "through which the Creator has so established existence and this universe. It was because he was good. No ill will whatever is ever engendered in goodness toward any being. As he is totally without any such disposition, he wills that every living being whatsoever shall become in the highest degree possible like himself. This is the leading principle according to which all visible things, and the universe itself, have been generated and brought into existence. The Deity desired that all things should be good, and nothing bad and disorderly. "Everything that was in commotion and palpable to the senses was reduced to order. Nothing that is destitute of mind is ever superior to a being that is fully endowed with mind.* It is impossible, however, for mind to be present apart from the Soul.** The Creator accordingly constructed the universe on this principle, placing mind in soul and the soul in a body. So, therefore," the philosopher complacently remarks, "we may justly and with ample reason speak of this cosmic world as a Being ensouled and endowed with mind, that in very truth exists through the providence of Divinity." -----------* Greek, nooz, noos, the noetie principle by which communication is made from the superior world to the soul. In the New Testament it is also denominated the "Spirit." ** Greek ynch, psuche. This term includes the selfhood of the individual. -----------The philosopher Empedokles taught accordingly that the universe, although at the same time the original examplar of the region of sense, is itself intellectible.* Timaeos also insists, in order that it might be most beautiful** and complete in design, the Creator formed it a living being, perceptible to sight and sense, having within it all the animate beings which are akin to it in their nature. It is second to no other; there is but one universe. It comprises all living beings whatever that are endowed with mind. Having come thus into existence it is both possessed inherently of being and it will always continue to exist. -----------* Greek nohtoz, noetos. Possessing mental quality of the kind superior to simple and external perceptivity. ** Greek kalliotoz, kallistos. The term for beauty in Greek exceeds in its purport the English term. It also implies superior moral quality. -----------The universe is described as a sphere constructed of earth and fire, to which water and air are superadded to bind it together. From these four principles, Timaeos declares the body of the universe was generated, and all its parts are made to cohere. This figure,

the sphere, he declares, most resembles the Creator himself. It is also so constituted as to provide its own nourishment from the products of its dissolution, so that nothing is added to it or taken away. By giving to it a circular motion only, there is no need for legs or feet. Thus the universe is one alone, self-sufficient and eternal, a blessed divinity. The soul of the universe, Timaeos further declares, did not come into existence later than the body, but subsisted prior to it and is older both in origin and excellence, queen and ruler. He explains its constitution as being from indivisible and unchanging essence united with a divisible second substance through an intermingling of them by a third form of essence intermediate between the two. The whole framework of the Soul having become thus jointed to the body by uniting the interior of one to the interior of the other, the body of the universal space thus came into existence visible, but the soul remained invisible and partaking of reason and harmony. In his admiration of the universe which thus symbolizes and resembles the gods, the Creator determined to make it more like its model. That was an eternal living being, and he accordingly, while arranging the universal space, produced Time, a likeness of the everlasting. Coming into existence with the universe, it will continue with it all the way. In order to preserve the enumerations of time the planets were also produced, and set in motion in their respective orbits. There were also originated four races of living beings: the gods in the sky,* the birds that fly in the air, the races that dwell in the water, and those that go upon the land. In the first of these are included the fixed stars, each of them a globe so as to adapt it to the universe; and next to them the Earth, our nourisher. He describes it as being fastened around the axis which extends through the universe, and is the guardian and Creator of night and day, the first and oldest of the gods that have come into existence inside the sky. ----------* The celestial luminaries are thus designated. Every star was the name of a soul or a god. ----------Having tempered the substance from which the soul of the universe was derived, thus lessening it in purity, he distributed souls in each of the stars, one in each, placing them as in a vehicle. Having assigned to them their functions and periods, he afterward produced the being that would be the most God-fearing of all. This being was of twofold nature, the stronger of which is called "man." While thus housed in bodies, the souls are subject to the emotions and natural appetites. Those who subdue these will live aright, but others will be unjust. After the appointed time those who do well will return each to his kindred star, and lead a blessed life ever after. But the individual who fails will fall into a womanish nature, or even further into a brutish character analogous to that degenerate contrition. He will then undergo continual pains and struggles, till he finally overcomes the disorderly and irrational qualities, and returns to the ideal of his first and highest condition. Having thus arranged the order of things, and scattered the souls to the various receptacles, the Creator remained fixed in himself as ever, and as he continued thus, the minor gods proceeded to make the mortal bodies, and whatever else was required for the necessities of the human soul.

Imitating the scheme of the universe, they placed the two divine circles in a spheroidal body, the head, which is the most God-like, and is lord of all things in us. To this the whole body is added. When first united with the body, Timaeos remarks, the soul is without intelligence. Its revolutions, however, are disturbed by the six kinds of motion and impulses from without; and the function of nutrition comes in for principal importance. But as nutrition and growth become less active, tranquillity and wisdom come to the individual. "When I was a babe," says the apostle Paul, "I prattled as in babyhood, I thought as one in babyhood, I reasoned like one in babyhood, but when I became a man I put away the things of babyhood." Timaeos presents this summary: "If any one receives the right food and instruction he becomes one in every respect in perfect health, escaping the worst distemper; but he that is neglectful will pass through the substance of life crippled and go into Hades imperfect and useless." Timaeos next gives an exposition of the framework and organs of the body and the powers of each. In this discussion he comes upon the one point which has elicited anxious thought in all ages, and which has not yet been satisfactorily determined. Heretofore he had been content with two characteristics: the model, always the same; and the imitation, generated and apprehended by the senses. But there is still a third, difficult to explain and obscure to the perception. He designates it the "receptacle," and so to speak the "nurse" of all that comes into objective existence. We will be understood better when we distinguish it by the accepted designation "matter," a term implying, etymologically, the mother-principle of existing things. Before the creation the three potencies, being, place and transformation, were in existence; and the primal matter, moistened and excited, received in itself the ideal forms of earth and air, and under the commotion occasioned by them, appeared under various aspects, and there was effected a separation of dissimilar parts and a massing together of those that were most alike. Such was the chaotic condition when the Creator undertook to arrange the universe. But Timaeos makes a wide distinction between creation as the work of the Absolute Mind, and the things which exist through necessity. It was his belief that the things which are non-material belong in the province of will, but that material things are subject of necessity to the mechanical law of cause and effect. Hence he represents the universe as having its genesis from the joining together of the supreme Mind and Necessity.* Mind ruling over Necessity induced it to bring the multitude of created things into existence at their best. -----------*Plutarch affirms that by the term anagkh, anagke or necessity, Plato designated matter. -----------By the alluring of Intelligence all things have their beginning. If, however, we desire to explain carefully how the universe came into existence, it will be imperative to intermingle the participation of the idea of a roving cause in the way of nature. Timaeos has accordingly classified objects in a threefold aspect: 1. That which is produced. 2. That in which it is produced; and 3. That to which the thing produced naturally bears resemblance. He, therefore, very aptly compares Matter - that which receives the impression - to the

mother; that from which the impression is received, to the father; and the intermediate, the product of the two, to the child. He would denominate the Primal Matter, the mother and receptacle of all things that are created, an ideal something, invisible and shapeless, open to receive every impression, and participating in some way in the very difficult things of the Superior Intelligence. We are thus brought to a cardinal doctrine of the Platonic philosophy, the doctrine of Ideas. These are themselves essences, things that have real being, distinct from matter and subsisting in the Divine Mind. They are the fundamental principles which underlie all our conditions of the outside world. That such principles had place in the mind of the Deity prior to Creation must be acknowledged. Order, justice, goodness, are such principles. Every form, every relation, every principle of the right must have been always present in the Divine thoughts. The universe must be that thought imaged into objective form. The soul being participant of the divine nature, is in a peculiar sense partaker of divine qualities and characteristics. It accordingly contains within its own being the same ideas and laws, according to which the universe itself exists, and therefore is in some degree capable of understanding them. Ideas are thus the medium of communication between God and the universe, between the Divine Mind and human thought. They are to the region of the mind what light is to the visible world. They constitute, therefore, the model or pattern by which all things are formed. To the soul the philosopher assigns three forms which are distributed in the body in a threefold manner, there being a peculiar mode of activity to each. When any of these chances to fail in respect to its proper functions, it becomes debilitated. The corresponding part of the body also suffers. Hence each department should maintain its own activities to an extent equivalent with the others. He also describes eloquently the Over-soul. "In respect to the supreme or divine part of the soul that is close to us we must understand this, namely: That Deity gave to every one a daemon or guardian divinity; that this has its abode upon the summit of the body, and that as we are not an earthly planting but a heavenly, its office is to take up from the earth to its kindred the divine ones in the sky. For we, asserting things that are most true, affirm positively that the divinity, making our head and root dependent from that source from which the soul had its first origin, directs the whole body aright." A man's soul, the philosopher insists, is the most divine of all his possessions, as being most his own. It is our duty to honor it in the second rank, next after the gods. In treating of the soul as it exists here in the world, he explains that it is a complex substance. There is the divine principle, intellectible, acting by its own will and energy, having its being in the eternal region with other essences of like nature. It is, however, allied to the body by an occult attraction which he represents as a descending into physical conditions. It is a mingling of the immortal principle with a mortal kind of soul belonging to the body only. The one is rational and intellectible, the other irrational and unintelligent. The former of these is established in the head; the other is diffused through the body. While the one is undivided and immovable, the other is exhibited in a twofold aspect. The passionate and emotional nature is assigned to an abode in the breast and about the heart, which is considered as its representative. The sensual and appetitive part, the seat of longing for corporeal delights, is located in the liver and region below the diaphragm. Hence the allusions made to the passions and disorders of the soul derive their point from

the view which is taken. The soul is considered divine, or mortal and fallible, according as it is contemplated on the higher or lower planes. In short, the philosopher summarizes the whole subject in a single sentence: "The universe receives and is full of living beings mortal and immortal, and has been formed a living being palpable to light and sense, containing things visible - a divinity perceptible to the senses, the likeness of the Intellectible, the greatest, best, most beautiful, and most perfect - that is, the only-begotten universe." Timaeos has now concluded his presentation of the origin of the world and its populations, and Kritias brings forward his story. There has been, he insists, a people in Attika having a social polity of the character that Sokrates had described. He relates that when Solon visited Sais in Egypt, he was admitted to the instructions of the temple of that city. He was speaking one day to the dominant priest of the early history of Athens, when the latter responded that the Grecian peoples were all of recent origin, and that none of them were really ancient. There had been once an Athens nine thousand years before, a thousand years before Sais itself. It was a model city, and its customs had been such as the founders of the Egyptian city had been eager to copy. The goddess Athena was the guardian of both cities and had established the regulations.* --------* Aahmes II, or Amasis, was king of Egypt when Solon visited that country. He introduced into his government many of the social and industrial requirements that existed at Athens. ---------In that ancient city were the class of priests and scholars devoted to religion and learning, the various orders of craftsmen, shepherds, herdsmen and cultivators of the soil. There were also the class of defenders who strictly followed their own calling. The law took cognizance of learning, not only in relation to the universe and its order, but also the art of divining and also of medicine so far as this included care of the health. In short, it took care of human affairs generally and the branches of learning connected with them. The goddess had selected the spot where the city was built, because its wholesome climate would favor the growth of a superior race; and there sprang up accordingly a people that surpassed all others in every thing noble and of merit, as became those who were under the special care of the divine beings. At that far-off time, the whole known world was involved in war. Outside the Pillars of Herakles the ocean was open and navigable and there existed an island larger than Libya and the Asian peninsula together. There were also other islands, and they all were subject to a powerful confederation of kings, who also held the western regions of Europe and Africa in subjection. These kings were of the progeny of Poseidon, who is described by classic writers as the Chief Divinity worshiped in the countries on the Mediterranean, and as contending anciently with Athena for the dominion over Athens. The account of the conflict with Athens and the Atlantean invaders is described in terms very similar to the occurrences in the Peloponesian war. In that ancient period of nine thousand years before, Athens had the lead among the cities of Greece, the people were superior in moral qualities, in the arts, and in war. When the invasion came she was at the head of all the Grecian forces that withstood the foe. For a time all were in

cooperation; but finally the allies fell away, leaving the Athenians to sustain the conflict alone. The invaders were routed and not only Greece, but all Europe and Africa were delivered and able to preserve their independence. After this came a succession of earthquakes, and finally the catastrophe of the whole region of Atlantis sinking beneath the ocean. In the original divisions of the earth, Athens had been assigned to Hephaestos and Athena, as being alike and in concert in the love of wisdom and the liberal arts. They planted the autochthones, making the men good and orderly. But the many floods that came had desolated the region and the records were lost. The survivors were unable to read, and so only names of distinguished individuals were preserved. Kritias calls attention to the fact that here, as in the description of Sokrates, there were names of women as well as of men, because both sexes participated alike in the pursuits of war. The dominion of Athens extended over Attika, and the region was larger than in later periods when the sea had encroached on the land. The population was composed of craftsmen in the various callings, and of agriculturists. There were also the noble caste of defenders, twenty thousand in number. They lived by themselves apart from the other inhabitants, having their possessions in common, eating at a common table, and sustaining no familiar relations with the other. From them the rulers and magistrates were chosen, and the army constituted. The ending of these conditions and of this period in prehistoric time is represented as taking place by catastrophes. A succession of earthquakes and deluges spread devastation. We can call to mind the tradition of the flood of Deukalion, which was described as submerging all land. It may be surmised that the Euxine sea once extended farther north toward the Baltic, or even to the Caspian, but had now forced an outlet to the Mediterranean, submerging Greece for a season, and creating permanently the territory at the eastward into the Archipelago. Such an event would be attended by violent commotions and changes elsewhere. Kritias declares that in a single day and night, that archaic Athens, with its people, was buried beneath the earth and Atlantis sank beneath the waters. Where that island or continent once existed, only mud remained and the ocean now sweeps over the region. Thus while the philosopher has described his ideal polity as existing only in thought, but nowhere on earth, he introduces Kritias with the legend of Atlantis to insist that such a polity has existed, and was able to maintain its integrity for centuries. His work is thus complete. In the two powers are represented two phases of development. Atlantis as a dominion arranged by arbitrary law, but demoralized in the course of a complicated experience, and Athens as the faultless commonwealth, where all the social relations are observed after the most exemplary manner by the harmonious action of the entire population. The ideal city and commonwealth represent the ideal man, and the ideal man is after the likeness of Divinity itself! ( The Word, vol. 6, March, 1908, pp. 351-60) -------------

Concerning Pleasure - Philebos By Alexander Wilder, M.D. We have a no other knowledge of Philebos than appears in this Dialogue having his name. He is introduced to us as having been brought to Sokrates by his pupil Protarchos, for the purpose of discussing a peculiar sentiment. Nevertheless, as though he was diffident or weary of the matter, he says but little, while Protarchos, who is a pupil of Gorgias the Sophist, maintains the argument. He assumes that the most substantial good to all living beings consists of joy, pleasure, delight, and whatever may be in accord with things of that character. Sokrates, however, lays down the contrary proposition: that to have understanding, to apperceive, to remember, and endowments akin to these faculties, such as right sentiment and true reasoning powers, are altogether better and more to be preferred than pleasure by those who are able to participate in them. These endowments, he declares, are not of advantage only to them, but also to those who come after them. It would now devolve upon each disputant, therefore, to indicate the permanent habit or incidental disposition of soul which is to be regarded as capable of assuring for every one a blessed condition of life. On the one hand, such a habit had been set forth by Philebos as being that of rejoicing, and on the other by Sokrates as the possessing of undertaking. But then, Sokrates suggests, suppose some other condition should appear which should be superior to both of these? Thus the term pleasure is applied in diversified forms. A dissolute person is described as having pleasure in one way and the discreet man in another. The unwise man is pleased in being satisfied with foolish sentiments and expectations, but the thoughtful man takes pleasure in thinking. Here pleasures are seen to be unlike one another. Many are evil, but others are good. Certainly also, however, the departments of knowledge are also different, so that in the matter of diversity the two sides are counterparts to each other. "So let us examine," says Sokrates, "whether we ought to pronounce pleasure or intelligence the highest good, or whether there is a third, that is superior to both. We are not engaging in a contest to gain a victory, but ought both of us to fight for what is the real truth." After referring to the problem of the one and the many, which are shown to be radically the same, Sokrates is besought by Protarchos to point the way, if there is any, out of the common one of viewing the matter. He explains that the men of ancient times who lived nearer to gods, had left after them the tradition of a gift to human beings which had come through Prometheus along with the glowing fire. The tradition related that the beings that are described as being eternal are from both the one and many, and thus limit and unlimited are combined in their nature. Accordingly as things have been so arranged, it is necessary for us in our reasoning after having assumed one general idea concerning anything that we shall endeavor to ascertain whether it is true. Whenever this shall have been found out, we should look for two ideas if there are two; but otherwise search for three or more. Then the search should be made for the others, which pertain and are to be included with these, and are intermediary between one and the undefined. Eventually it will be manifest that the one at the beginning is not only one, and many, and infinite, but likewise what it is. It should be noted that the concept of indefiniteness is not to be brought to this intermediary many, till there is perceived the relation of all the number from infinity the one. Thus knowing becomes intelligence.

"The divine beings have delivered this tradition to us," says Sokrates, "in order that we should examine matters in this way, and learn and instruct one another. But now-adays the wise men take up the one or many, as it may chance, and more hurriedly or slowly than is judicious, and they bring up the undefined immediately after the one, letting the intermediate pass without notice." This is illustrated in the art of writing. The voice as it issues from the mouth is absolutely one, yet when regarded by its modulations it is differentiated to infinity. The perceiving of it as one, or that it is unlimited, does not meet our conception of knowing; without such perceiving there can be no knowledge. When we perceive the one it is necessary to follow it to the infinite, and then must by number make our way back to the one. Thus knowing becomes intelligence. Upon this principle, it is recorded that Theth constructed the system of letters. The sound of the voice was first contemplated as being without limit; nevertheless, there are distinct sounds distinguished by the vowels; others which are called semi-vowels; and still others which are known as mutes or consonants, and liquids. The number of each kind having been duly comprehended, together with the relations existing between them, they are congregated together in the gramatical technic. This mode of reasoning may be applied to the question under consideration and we are led to the suggestion that the absolute good is neither pleasure nor intelligence, but a third something that is different from them and superior to both. It is evident that this condition is more perfect and sufficient, every being that knows of it desires eagerly to possess it, and cares for nothing else, except as it has been made complete together with such as are good. In the life of pleasure there should be nothing of intelligence and in the life of intelligence there should be nothing of pleasure. For if either of them is the superior good it will need no addition from anything else. If it required such aid it would come short of being the chief good. The individual possessing only the condition of pleasure must then be considered as being without mind, memory, superior knowledge, or upright judgment. He must be totally ignorant whether he ever had or did not have any enjoyment, or even to think when feeling a joy that he is actually feeling it; and having no reasoning faculty, he could not even expect a joy to come at any future time. This would not be living the life of a human being, but that of a certain kind of mollusk, or some other marine substance endowed with vitality, and having bodies like those of oysters. On the other hand, a life of pure mentality - the possessing of intelligence, mind, superior ken, and every recollection of every thing, would be absolutely without the experiencing of pleasure, great or little, or of pain, but would, instead, be a total insensibility to any thing of the kind. This condition, likewise is one that nobody would choose, A third one in which mentality and pleasure are combined, is to be preferred to a type of either the first or second alone. This concept, however, leads beyond, and all these to a fourth subject of enquiry, that of the cause. Taking a survey of the whole field, all things may be apportioned thus: as those which are limitless and so capable of being increased or diminished; those which limit and measure; those which are produced by the joint action of those two; and the cause of all. Belonging to the first of these are the antagonistic qualities like heat and cold, pleasure and

pain, dryness and moisture, swiftness and slowness. By the combining of any two of these opposites they will limit each other according as they are interblended, thus producing moderation, due proportion and equipoise; hence, besides these three, the unlimited, the limiting, and the combined two, there is a fourth to be considered. For pleasure, except it is limitless and admits of increase and diminution, is not entirely a good. So, likewise, pain is not wholly bad. Hence it will be perceived that something of a different nature is required that can impart good to pleasures. The philosopher having established this fact, now endeavors to indicate this additional principle. It is not to be supposed that all things, including what we call the universe, go on by chance, and are managed by a power destitute of rationality. On the contrary, they are arranged and directed by mind and superior intelligence. Every thing is disposed in perfect order. The universe, sun, moon, stars, and the revolutions of the sky, all move in their course without break or accident. The constitution of the universe, (the macrocosm) is the same as that of human beings, the microcosm. As our body is informed by soul, so there is a soul of the universe from which it derives its existence. The potency which bestows the soul and makes the body its shadow, and also frames the other creations, is revered as the perfect and manifold wisdom. In these creations was manifest a nature superlatively beautiful and worthy of veneration. The Cause which produced this order of things and which arranges the years and seasons and months, is most rightly called mind and wisdom. Yet these could not have actual existence without a soul. Hence in the nature of Zeus, there are both a kingly soul and a kingly mind through the power of the Supreme Cause. Thus Plato recognizes the oversoul, the superessential, the source of All. Having led the discourse from theme originally proposed for consideration by a legitimate course of reasoning, to the acknowledgement of divinity, he turns his attention back to the problems, mind and pleasure which had been already assigned to their true rank. Mind was shown to be akin to the supreme cause, and pleasure to belong to the category of the limitless, having neither beginning, middle or end. The third factor is next to be considered, that in which pleasure and mental action are combined. Though opposites in their nature, pleasure and pain are in the same category, each of them consequent to the other. Apart from pain we would not be conscious of pleasure. When the established order of the framework of the body is relaxed, pains are the result. The restoring of this order will produce pleasure. Hunger, thirst, chilled condition of the body, overheating, are pains occasioned by such relaxation; and the supplying of food, drink, proper warmth, or lowering of bodily temperature in such instances are sources of pleasure. Accordingly, these conditions of pain are simply a consciousness of want and the desire for its supply. The sensation thus produced is a mental movement, as is likewise the desire itself. The inclination of every living being to mitigate its sufferings shows that there is a perception of the means of relief, which arises from remembering such means. The philosopher accordingly brings the others to the acknowledgment that as memory leads to the things desired, the soul is the actual factor, and hence that the body by no means experiences hunger or the other conditions. Memory operating with the sensations and the conditions which they create, writes speeches in our souls. If the impressions are true the opinions which are formed from them will also be true, and the speeches likewise which are produced. If they are not, true, neither will the opinions and speeches be true. There is also an artist within us, which

makes pictures of these things in the soul. When our sight or some other of our senses is shut off, these pictures and representations are apparent to us. Dreams and reveries manifest them to our view. Our opinions are founded both upon these and also upon our hopes and fears, which are so many expeditions to the future. T hey are thus sources of pleasure and pain from anticipation of what may happen. There are periods when the soul feels neither pain nor pleasure. These are produced by the great changes about us; while moderate and trifling changes are not noticed at all. Indeed it has been asserted that all real pleasure was the enjoying of freedom from pain. This however, is hardly correct. The most intense pleasures are the bodily delights, those which are preceded by the strongest desires. Those in fevers suffer violent thirst and are eager for drink. The greatest delights and the extremest pains are produced when the condition of the soul and body is one of darkness, but not when it is normal and virtuous. Yet we would hesitate to draw the conclusion that a disordered state of body and soul was one of greater pleasure than a moral and healthy condition. The passions, which are of the soul alone, as anger, fear, desire, grief, love, emulation, envy, are so many forms of pain, yet are fraught with boundless delights. Thus in the representations of tragedies, individuals will weep while in the every extreme emotions of joy. Envy, however, is a more forcible illustration. It is unequivocally a pain of the soul; nevertheless, the envious person feels warm delight at the calamities of others. Ignorance, too, is evil, and so is the habit that we call silliness. Of this ignorance, our philosopher enumerates three kinds. Some imagine themselves to be richer than they are; others as more handsome of body; but the third class, who are the most numerous, think themselves to be better, to excel in virtue of soul - such not being the case. They aim at the possessing of wisdom, when in the midst of eager rivalship and false concepts of what wisdom really is. Those who are not able to defend themselves are made subjects of ridicule; and they who can sustain their own part are hated. In thus making game of the one and hating the other, the passion of envy which is a pain of the soul is manifested as a dream in which everything comes by snatches; but to which are concepts and even views of what is beyond. Hence there is a good exceeding what has been apprehended. But, as Plato has remarked in the Republic, "it exists here only in our reasoning, but I think has no existence upon this earth." Thus it may be regarded as fully established, that in all things relating to them, the body by itself without the soul, the soul by itself without the body, and likewise the soul and body together, have their respective delights and enjoyments in abundance, all these being common right with pain. Sokrates referred to this close relation of the two, when the chain was taken off his leg in the prison. That something which was called pleasure seemed unaccountable to him in its peculiarity and particularly so in its relation to its opposite, pain. The two will not be present with an individual at the same time; and yet if one should pursue and attain the one, he is compelled to receive the other, as though they were both united together from one head. If Esop had observed this, he would have made a fable to explain that the Creator, desiring to reconcile the two warring principles, and not able to do it united their heads. Hence when one of the two visits an individual the other comes directly afterward. Nevertheless, plausible as it may seem, especially to sufferers of severe pain, we may not credit the assertion that the cessation constitutes the only real pleasure. There may be seeming pleasures which are not really such, and there are delights which appear

to be many and great, but are really combined with pains, which have relation to perplexities of body and soul. There are pleasures, certainly, which are truly pure and genuine. Of this kind are those delights of sense which are experienced from beautiful colors and figures, from agreeable odors, from harmonious sounds, and in short, from whatever possessing wants that are unperceived and without pain permits them to be supplied after a manner that is both perceptible and full of enjoyment. The pleasures that are connected with leaning, are of this character. There is no pain at the beginning arising from hunger after knowledge, and if afterward the learning is lost by forgetfulness, there is no pain perceived in the forgetting. If the individual subsequently feels pain through the want of the knowledge, it has no relation to the forgetting when this takes place. The pleasures of learning may be considered, therefore, as unmixed with pain, but only a few participate in them. Pleasures may also be distinguished as the vehement and the moderate. Those of the intense character belong to the department of the limitless and are borne along through the body and soul, but the moderate delights are the more pure and genuine. The assumption is declared by some reasoners that pleasure is a something always beginning, but never attaining to any real existence. Yet all beginning is for the sake of the existing afterward; ship-building, for example, is for the sake of ships, and ships are not for the sake of ship-building. All generating is for the sake of what is generated. It is manifest at the slightest consideration that pleasure, unmixed with mentality, and mentality without pleasure, are conditions of life in no way to be desired. Neither of the two is perfect or good. Instead, this must consist in a proper combining of the two. One form of pleasure, however, is purer than another; and one department of knowledge is superior to another. There must be accordingly an adaptation of each to the other, or else dire confusion would ensue. Every art, every mental pursuit, must be allied to its corresponding delight. A vehement, exciting delight is not congruous or in harmony with mental pursuits. Maddening pleasures interpose a thousand hindrances to mind and understanding, but enjoyments that are pure and moderate, which are accompanied with health and sobriety are acceptable and appreciated. "For I imagine," says Protarchos when pressed to the conclusion, "that no one will find anything more immoderate than pleasure and extravagant joy; not a single thing of more moderation than mind and understanding." The moderate and opportune are before it in the divine favor; and these always are allied to symmetry, harmony and beauty, the perfect and sufficient. The mind and understanding come next, and after them the superior knowledge, the nobler arts, and right judgment of things. These all stand in closer relations to the superior good than to pleasure. Then, after these and transcending them are the genuine pleasures which do not follow in the line of knowledge, but rather the sensations of the soul. "It is sanity," says Emerson. "to know that over my knack or work, and a million times better than any talent, is the central intelligence which subordinates and uses all talents; and it is only as a door into this that any talent or the knowledge it gives is of value. My next point is this: that in the scale of powers it is not talent but sensibility which is best. Talent confines, but the central life puts us in relation to all." Sokrates now declares, as though to nail all that has been brought to view, that, though all the swine and goats in the world were to join in applauding the advocate for pleasure, he himself would never be persuaded that the superior good, human happiness, consisted in being pleased so long as mind excelled and prevailed in all things. Yet, this

is not complete. They who covet and delight in the contemplation of the real do not become satiated. To them the present is as a dream in which every thing comes by snatches; but to which there are concepts and even visions of what is beyond. There are perceptions that there is yet a superessential good beyond our investigations - an end and consummation older than inquiry has apprehended. But as the philosopher has remarked in the Republic, "It exists in our discourse, but I think that it is nowhere upon this earth." (The Word, June, 1906) ----------------------

THE GENESIS AND PRE-NATAL LIFE - Alexander Wilder, "A nature perfectly correct must show itself able to render both bodies and souls most beautiful and good." - Plato Plutarch in his curious collection of excerpts, The Natural Things which the Philosophers take Delight in Studying, has given us a repertory of most valuable suggestions. It includes a great variety of themes, as for example: Nature itself, First Principles, Elements or Composites, the Kosmos or Universe, Divinity, Matter, Ideas, Causes, Bodies, Molecules, Necessity, Destiny, Fate, the Heavens and Earth with their motions, then the Soul with its activities and qualities, the conditions preceding and incident to mundane life, and finally what we denominate Heredity. For the supposition which many entertain that Philosophy is solely a pursuit of wisdom transcending what may he known of physical facts, and the converse notion that it consists entirely of the knowledge of natural things, are alike erroneous; for it comprises both in their respective spheres. In his Fifth Book here named our author presents us with the speculations of the Hellenic Sages in respect to our physical nature and its conditions. These related to the laws and circumstances of our transition into the natural life, and the peculiarities of heredity; as for example, why children resembled their parents and progenitors, and why they often differed in temper, character and in other respects. It is proper to take a full account of this department of the subject. The conditions attending the advent of the physical life are also essentials of the subsequent culture. It gives us confidence, our author declares, to be well born. It is fortunate beyond all power of estimate to be well fathered and well mothered. The beneficent consequences extend not only through the whole life, but also through the coming ages. Meanwhile, the children of an unworthy father or mother are blemished at their birth, and likely to be pursued as long as they live by the ignominious fact of their early history. As is the mother, so is her daughter; the fathers eat sour grapes and the teeth of the sons are set on edge. The criminal, the libertine, the persons greedy for selfish ends are never likely to become parents, except of offspring tainted deeply with similar evil propensities. From thorn bushes nobody expects grapes to grow, nor from thistles any fruitage of luscious figs. Much of the insane diathesis, perverted faculty, defective intelligence, imperfect physical sense, stunted or repulsive configuration of body, and vicious proclivity,

which we observe in many cases, may be set down as the inheritance from a drunken ancestry. Thus Diogenes, the Cynic philosopher, once reproached a crack-brained and half-witted stripling: "Surely when thy existence began thy father was drunk." We acknowledge gladly that much, very much, can be accomplished with suitable training and self-discipline to overcome these faults of natural conformation. As the richest soil is unproductive when left without cultivation, and the best beginning suffices but little if not followed by diligent activity, so, on the other hand, the unfortunate sufferers from heredity may correct much of their condition physically and morally by proper effort. Our longest-lived individuals are often those who began with a frail body, and it is recorded of Sokrates that although the wisest of Greeks he had the appearance and natural proclivity of a satyr. Nevertheless, in such cases the drawback continues with them, that they are carrying a heavy weight through their whole term of life, which impedes endeavor on every hand and generally compels them to remain in a subordinate place in the theatre of active life. Yet we are able to view the matter on the brighter side. While the evil dispositions of ancestry are said to be transmitted to the children to the third and fourth generation, the virtuous tendencies, the same authority assures us, will continue to the thousandth. Evil is always transitory, but good is perennial. This world is not normally a place for human beings to grow worse in, but to become better and more highly developed. There is a recuperative principle in our nature always operating to repair the mischiefs that have come to us, or which may occur during our varied experiences. With all the plausibility and actual truth that may exist in this dogma of heredity, we see no adequate reason for accepting it as a complete solution of the enigmas. Indeed, it appears to be a kind of stock argument by which to evade rather than to explain embarrassing questions. There may be other causes operative, holier inseminations, if we may so express it, by which pure children are born of ill parentage, as the loveliest water-lilies come from the foulest mud. We may not regard the unborn infant as merely a living mass of flesh and blood, without any moral quality. Such a notion may serve as a placebo for the conscience of certain individuals, but it cannot be justly entertained. This matter of the spiritual and moral nature of human beings during what is regarded as the inchoate period of existence, involves deeper problems than are presented by the conditions which are shared in common with the animals. Even at that time there exist the basis and rudiments of the intellectual quality. If therefore, it be true that man does not live by bread alone, but by an energy that is beyond and more life-imparting than bread, it is still more true that the nobler moral and spiritual nature does not proceed solely from the analogous qualities of parents and ancestry, but is likewise from a source infinitely higher. Let us, then, bear the fact in mind that the Soul is the veritable self, the ego or individuality.* The body, head, brain, any or all of them, may not be accounted in any proper sense as the selfhood. I have often noted in my own vivid consciousness that they were something apart and distinct from me. Their peculiar form and office fit them admirably for my service and convenience. I am certain that I could not do so well with any other, and I would not be at home in another person's body. Yet I could not have had this body of mine so perfectly adapted to me, except I had had some directing agency in its fabrication. The poet Spenser has well explained this: "For of the soul the body form doth take

For soul is form, and doth the body make.'' -----------* The writers of the New Testament have incidentally recognized this fact. In the Synoptic Gospels according to Mark and Matthew, the question is asked "What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" In the book by Luke, the text reads: "What is a man advantaged if he gain the whole world and lose himself?" Indeed, in most places in the Bible where the term soul occurs, the same sense is preserved by substituting the word self. --------------It is easy, therefore, to perceive and understand that being thus divine and constructive, the Soul is superior and older than the body. We are not able intelligently to conceive that it has its first inception with it in the protoplasmic ooze. It can be by no means a fabricated thing, like the objects perceptible to our senses, but must be from its inherent quality now and always of the eternal region. How it was projected into temporal life and conditions, and whether it became personal by such projection, are questions of deep interest to earnest thinkers. Whether, when coming into the circumscribed region of Time there was a former consciousness rendered dormant, as from the fabled drinking of the Eethean draught, is a question in the same category. Perhaps, we sometimes remember. It may not rationally be pleaded as an objection that this is a concept of too unreal and visionary character to deserve serious consideration. We are what we are by virtue of our interior thought, our will and desires, and our bodily organism is only the minister to these. Day by day and even moment by moment the particles which make up the body are perishing, and new ones taking their place. Yet during all these changes, the soul arid thinking principle remain the same. If, then, our identity and memory continue thus unaffected during these transformations of bodily tissue, it can not be illusive and unreasonable to suppose that they have endured through a succession of ages and changes prior to the present term of corporeal existence. The transit of the soul from the eternal region to the conditions of corporeal life, is a matter by no means easy to comprehend. The human understanding is somewhat like a vessel, incapable of receiving a truth or concept of superior or equal dimensions to itself. A little perhaps, may be known, but far more is only to be observed, contemplated, and admired. On its superior side the soul is divine; on the other, human and subject to the contingencies of change, its genesis is not its beginning as a living essence, but its transition, extension or projection into conditional existence. This may be considered as being the result of a predilection, an attraction of spiritual for the phenomenal life. Plato has given us, in the Tenth Book of the Republic, a very significant suggestion in regard to this matter. Eros, of Pamphylia, had fallen in battle, but when laid upon the funeral pyre, twelve days afterward, recovered from his trance. He had been in the world beyond and beheld many wonderful things. Among them was the beginning of a period of life upon the earth, to those of mortal race, the "souls of a day." They were selecting from models the form of life in which they would live upon the earth. Thus, the cause of their respective careers was in their own choice. Those who had lived here very frequently, as if weary of excessive effort or the tedium of monotony, chose a mode of life widely different

from what had been lived. To each of these models a Daemon or guardian genius belonged, so that every one thus selected his own, and thereby his destiny. They next proceeded to the plain of Lethe, and drank the water from the river of forgetfulness, which no vessel contains. Then falling asleep, they were carried hither and thither, to begin their life in the world. Hence the soul when first united to a mortal body, is without intelligence; but as time passes, every one who receives proper food and education, receives his proper allotment and development. We for our part are enabled to know this much: that a certain vital quality is conjoined with an albuminous molecule, which immediately thereupon begins to unfold organic structures and afterward continues the process of maturing them into the several parts of the future body. So far the human and animal races are similar, yet in the same thing and beyond, they part and are differenced. While this is going on, the thoughts and emotions of the mother, even to her loves and aversions, are blended with the psychical nature of the developing individual, making him or her different in the future character from what otherwise might have been the case. By no means, however, does the agency of the father cease with the inception of this process, with the involution or enwombing, which is always before evolution and is its prior cause. The mother having become "bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh," the child, so far as concerns the exterior selfhood, is not hers alone, but theirs in common. The affection of the father for the mother, or his indifference and aversion will permeate their child's temper and moral qualities. For the father does not cease, during the entire gestative period to do his full share for the weal or woe of the future individual. A man can no more disconnect himself from the life of his progeny than a tree can sever itself from any of its branches. The act by which physical existence begins, is therefore sacred and sacramental, an allying of human souls in solemn league with the eternal world. To speak of it lightly and with idle ribaldry is really a sacrilege. During the gestative period the child is receptive to a most extreme degree. We may imagine it to be unconscious, but this is because we do not know. It is certainly subconscious, somewhat like the person in the mesmeric trance. "As soon as the voice of thy salutation came into mine ears," says Elizabeth to Mary, "the babe leaped in my womb for joy.'' We know that every caress of the mother, every harsh word or unkind act, affects the little one in her arms. The milk is a potent agent in forming the character and disposition. The babe after birth is, however, nothing else than the continuation of the babe that was enwombed and fed from the mother's blood. While, therefore, the body of the child is taking foray in the body of the mother, almost as part of her, its moral and passional nature is acquiring her characteristics, her modes of thought and feeling, and even her very sentiments. When the little one awakes into the earth-life it has similar likes, tastes, habits and repugnances to those which she had cherished. Plato gives parentage all the significance of a religious observance. It should be preceded, he declares, by an affectionate devotion of husband and wife to each other. "All persons who share in any work,'' he remarks, "when they give their minds to themselves and the work, produce the whole beautiful and good; but when they do not give their minds, or possess any, the result is the contrary." This pre-natal period is a time of teaching without textbooks, lectures or recitations. The teachers impart their instruction by the medium of will and thought; and the learner is a very apt one. The lessons are generally retained in the internal memory for the lifetime. "The divine principle seated in

man, if it obtains the consideration to winch it is entitled, from those who bring it into action, will set all things right." His suggestions were given with a view to the highest perfection, bodily as well as moral and spiritual. He recommended youth on the part of mothers and perfect maturity for men, with prudence in both. Like Hesiod and others he pleaded against an excessive number of children in a family. There should be a son to maintain the "honoring of father and mother, the worship rendered to ancestry, and also to prevent any deficiency of population." This course would enable a proper maintenance and education for every one. But when the necessary conditions do not exist of food, clothing and shelter, the welfare of the home is imperilled, the mental training is sure to be defective and the higher development is almost hopelessly arrested. The community then swarms with unfortunate persons, sickly and debilitated, and with those who on account of their ignorance and inefficiency, are disabled from earning a livelihood. The antecedent existence of the human soul has been a belief recognized in the older world-religions, and entertained by the profounder thinkers in all the historic ages. It pervaded every faith and influenced all forms of thought. The Buddhistic teachers accordingly tell us of karma or innate tendency, the result of our action in former terms of existence. By its operation every thing that is done by us infixes itself in the very elements of our being, thenceforth to influence the motives, conduct and events of our subsequent career, as a destiny that may not be shunned. This influence, they declare, will not cease with a single term in life, but affects the career and fortunes of those which follow. Hence we are what we are in our exterior nature, not from heredity alone, nor from the higher estate of the soul in eternity, but also from the conditions which we ourselves have created. "Rabbi,'' said the disciples to Jesus, "did this man sin or his parents, that caused him to be born blind?" The moral conditions of the soul are not changed because we are parted from the body. Whether we are to accomplish a progress of ages in the invisible region, or are embodied anew and born again into the earth-life, they are certain to influence and modify our fortunes. Wisely therefore, may we heed the counsel of the great philosopher: "The most important thing is to become expert and intelligent to distinguish what is the goodlife and what is the bad, and to choose the best. This will lead the soul to be become more just, and to overcome the evils of heredity, acquired wickedness and other misfortunes, so that the individual will shape his next life and become correspondingly blessed and happy." Most happy is the child that is ushered into this life with propitious influences to move it onward through its earthly career yet I will add that such a one will be infinitely more blessed, if as man or woman, the higher knowledge and inspiration shall impel to the overcoming of the abnormal or unholy bias, and ancestral entailment: and so, he or she shall emerge into a higher life, higher thought, higher moral altitude. There are some who do all this and they are the precious and sacred ones whose presence makes the earth fragrant and renders life richly worth the living. Let us welcome the new-comer while yet on the way. Let everything pertaining to the Great Mystery of Life be esteemed as venerable and holy. Let us honor even to reverence her to whom the sacred charge has been committed. If the August Son of David coming into Jerusalem might be greeted with applause and hosannas, then with sentiments equally just and worthy may we hail the approach of the infant man or woman about to become an actor and participant in the experiences of life. For every child comes as a herald from the eternal world, an apostle to save, to ransom and redeem.

(Theosophy, vol. 12, no. 3, June, 1897) -------------------------

RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY

The Birth and Being of Things: Creation and Evolution - Alexander Wilder James Martineau, in an elaborate thesis upon "The Place of Mind in Nature," affirms, as the outcome and fruitage of his reasoning, that nothing can be evolved that is not first involved. The child must have a father, else it will not have a mother. This is a repeating of the declaration of Plato in the Timaeos, that that which comes into existence proceeds necessarily from a cause, always in absolute being and ever the same. "To discover this Creator and Father, as well as his work, is very difficult; and when discovered it is impossible to reveal him to the many." All thought inevitably tends to the recognition of the supreme, absolute One. We behold on every hand, in the mechanism and operations of the universe, the evidences of intelligence, and vitally interblended with it an omnific will. These are manifest in the laws which govern the whole world of Nature, including the great and the vast, and extending with equal precision to the most inconsiderable and minute. All development in a definite direction, toward the realizing of a dominant scheme of ascending relations, is the sway of an overruling end. We find upon a leaf, and throughout the planetary worlds, the like superlative Wisdom. We may not assume to comprehend this Supreme Essence, but we can know that a Divine Person, an Infinite Mind by no means beyond our apprehension, is the Lord and Creator of this universe. "There will remain," says Herbert Spencer, "the one absolute certainty, that man is ever in the presence of an Infinite and Eternal Energy, from which all things proceed." That Energy being in and of eternity, originating and upholding all that exists, is the outgoing of that which is essentially life perfectly at one with intelligence. The method of Lucretius - that nothing comes into existence from a purpose, but only from a power - fails at every step to meet the demand of the heart and intellect for an immanent cause as well as an antecedent. The hypothesis of an inexorable Necessity, prescribing that all things must be and occur as they do, makes the very air itself seem dense and irrespirable. Philosophy takes its views upon a higher plane, and inspirits the soul with a higher perception. Hence, when it teaches us in regard to creation, it begins with the Divinity. Its first lessons are those of conscience, the knowledge which we and God jointly possess. Thus we perceive that life is universal and common both to creature and Creator. It is no mere existing, with such qualities as desire, appetite, and sentience, but the exercising of higher love and thought. Man is little less than divine, and God is the Infinite Humanity. Hence, the human form and ideal exist in all living things in the world of Nature, because they subsist from that Divine Source.

By Creation, therefore, let us understand the causation and genesis of things, and by Evolution their unfolding into phenomenal existence. We may not perplex ourselves respecting any arbitrary fiat making that become something actual which before had no being, nor be wearied needlessly over any problem of unused forces. The Divine Energy went forth to create, and the operative principle fell into every manner of receptacle, causing the interminable variety of form and life which is manifest on every hand. Creation is simply and absolutely what God does. In its inception and accomplishment it is divine. It is always in process, without beginning or end. We distinguish carefully between the doing and the doer. Of that which is done we may have some reasonable insight, but he exceeds our capacity. "We comprehend thee not," says the rapt artist-maiden of Fredrika Bremer's romance; "but we know well whom thou art!" From thus One, creation incessantly proceeds to the manifold throughout the world of Nature; and, dividing matter from essence, fashions it into every conceivable thing. The forces which bestow life, as the humblest understanding may readily perceive, are themselves living principles, agents of a superior Cause. We ought also to have some definite conception of what the term matter really signifies. It has been very generally supposed to denote that which is corporeal, tangible, and perceptible to the physical sense. The ancient sages, however, regarded it as something beyond - as the dominating necessity intermediary between the world of sense and the sphere of causes. It is accordingly described by Plato as neither earth, air, fire, water, nor any of their compounds or elements, but as a form of condition, invisible, unshapely, all-receiving, and partaking of the Higher Intellect in some manner most difficult and hard to understand; and thus as the passive recipient or matrix of the creative operation. The word itself seems to have been adopted from this conceit. Like the names of the Great Goddess in the old mythologies, Venus, Kybele, Demeter, Mylitta, it signifies the mother, or maternal principle. It denotes the transition-element between the real and the apparent, the eternal and the contingent - the condition or medium necessary for the production of every created thing. Many modern scientists seem to be approaching a similar conception. John Stuart Mill declares that matter may be defined as a permanent possibility of sensation. This can only mean that it is the medium by which mental operations become physically conscious, and it leads inevitably to the conclusion that the sphere of mind is prior and superior to that of Nature. Faraday also confessed his belief of the immateriality of natural objects. He acknowledged that the doctrine commonly received of the impenetrability of matter - that no two kinds of matter can occupy the same space - is contrary to some of the most obvious facts in chemistry, and may not be maintained. Galileo, Bishop Berkeley, and Joseph Priestley had already attained the same conviction. Boscovich, the learned Italian Jesuit, many years ago propounded the doctrine that the old notion of ultimate and indivisible atoms is fictitious. What we denominate matter, he declared to be resolvable, in its last analysis, into points of dynamic force. Faraday supported this statement, demanding: "What do we know of an atom apart from force?" This conclusion exhibits matter devoid of all positive character, and of every physical quality usually attributed to it. A point has neither magnitude nor dimension; and matter, in such case, disappears altogether from the world of time and space to subsist entirely in the realm of force. It is dynamic - endowed with power, possibility, capability. But that which is dynamic is not originative, or even capable of subsisting by itself. It is negative, and thus

receptive of the positive kinetic, energizing force, and by virtue of interblending with it becomes the material or maternal principle that gives external existence to things. Thus Nature is mother of us all, but not our father. Her laws are unchangeable; but they are not absolute, nor of her making. The Sower of the eternal region went forth to sow, and only the seed which he cast forth ever germinated into created existence. All, therefore, that we know of matter is force, and its properties are manifestations of energy. It is by no means certain that any of its several conditions has limitations which may not be overpassed. We may justly question whether the quantity of material elements in the earth or elsewhere is precisely determined as by measurement; the weight and dimensions certainly are not. Faraday has shown that we may cast oxygen into potassium, atom for atom, and again both oxygen and hydrogen in a twofold number of atoms; and yet with all these additions the material will become less and less in bulk, till it is not onethird of its original volume. A space which would contain twenty-eight hundred atoms, including seven hundred of potassium, is thus filled by four hundred and thirty of potassium alone. Lockyer goes further and changes the form of the very metals themselves. Placing copper under the voltaic current he rendered it volatile; and afterward made it appear, by means of the spectroscope, transmuted into calcium. Nickel was thus metamorphosed into cobalt, and calcium into strontium. In India are men of skill who carry this work to greater certainty, who will add to gold a larger amount of baser metal and then seemingly change it all to gold, losing not a grain in weight. Significantly, however, there must be gold in the crucible with which to begin the experiment. It may also be asked whether matter did not become such from the prior substance, whether it may not again cease to be matter; and, further, whether the elements, as they are usually denominated, do not themselves undergo transmutation. Certainly the analogies of nature do not sanction the notion of an ever-sameness in its several departments. We have no absolute warrant for asserting that gold has always been gold, silver always silver, iron always iron. Gold actually grows and increases in its matrix of quartz, and metals will disappear under the galvanic current. The affinities of chemical atoms, and their variableness, indicate the elements to be compounds of simpler material; and if this be so, there can be but very few primal forms of matter - enough simply for the holding of force and enabling its evolution into the world of nature. It is not amiss, therefore, to suppose that matter is incessantly moving onward in a circle, emanating all the while from spiritual essence, and reverting thither again. Thus is afforded to us the amplest reason and opportunity for an honest and sincere acknowledgment of the Supreme Being, both as the will that energizes and the mind that directs. However the natural forces may be installed in full possession of the universe, the divine will is prefixed to it as its source and origin. In the conceptions of creation and evolution, mind is first and rules forever. We can suppress the consciousness of this fact only by the suppressing of consciousness itself. We recognize the truth, nevertheless, that that which is subjective must have its objective, coeval and inseparable from itself. Infinite Love will extend its energy to an intelligent creation, and demand to be reciprocated. Such is the going forth in creative operation, and such again the returning in evolutionary manifestation, aspiring to be the complement of the other. Emanation is accordingly prior and causative of evolution. "All things are out from God," the great Apostle declares. "Every one who thinks from clear reason," says Emanuel

Swedenborg, "sees that all things are created out of a substance which is substance in itself, for that is being itself, out of which everything that is can have existence; and since God alone is Substance in itself, and therefore Being itself, it is evident that from this Source alone is the existence of things." Thus creation has by no means proceeded upon the ground of naked omnipotence, or resulted from a simple "fiat" of the Almighty, speaking entity out of non-entity, but from the very central source of existence. God has created the universe, not out of nothing, but out of Himself. The Word or Divine light became flesh the creative energy - and tabernacled in us. "In Nature," says Schelling, "the essence strives first after actualization, or exhibition of itself in the particular." Life is universal in all the world of material substance. Solely because of this fact, there exist force and matter, created things and energy - all which otherwise could not have being. Every minute particle has the measure of life peculiar to it; and that life is operative as the polarizing principle which we denominate magnetism. The universe is thus life-receiving all the way through - even in the stars, stones, and corpses. Anything really dying would pass into absolute nothing that very moment. We can form no idea of an atom or nucleus apart from its inhering energy. As all plants and animals are constituted corporeally of solidified air, so, by analogy of reasoning, matter is the product of solidified forces - as in the parable of Genesis, woman was produced from the Adam. If we can conceive of spirit or mind as positive energy, and that it can in some arcane way become objective and reactive, we may form the concept of the source and originating of matter. One solitary particle would be nucleus sufficient for the objectifying of force and expansion into the interminable dimensions of the universe. Life operates in the mineral under the form of polarity, and disposes every molecule in its relative position to the others, exhibiting the phenomena of chemical affinity, shaping crystals and even producing figures in perfect symmetry resembling trees and other vegetable structure. Such mimic forms are readily developed with every flash of lightning, and with every electric discharge from a Leyden jar. In organic bodies of the vegetable kingdom again, the cellular tissue is sometimes found - to be arranged with geometric accuracy like bricks in masonry, cells in the honeycomb, or air-chambers in plants, as though they had been crystallized in such a manner. Nor do they excel in geometry alone; but in the arrangement of their blossoms, the form of the corollas, and enumeration of sepals and petals, there exist methods which combine number and form. Thus, in the beginnings of nature, God geometrizes and exhibits design and purpose. In the plant we further observe the principle of polarity in the evolution of a double stem, the one growing downward and the other upward. We may also observe somewhat of an instinct impelling the roots to reach out for water and nourishment, and the branches to seek the sunshine; and the stalk itself is fashioned somewhat after the analogy of the spinal cord, with its outgrowing nerves extending in various directions. In the animal kingdom the same energy operates by similar laws. The instinct which induced in the vegetable a growth in the direction where light, warmth, and moisture were to be obtained, is here developed further as appetite for food; and it also differentiates into various other forms, as the fear of danger, apprehension of famine and inclement weather, and affection for offspring. The organic world is itself, moreover, a participant in the creative operation. The plants do not, so far as can be ascertained, derive their principal supply of carbon from the earth or atmosphere in that form, but have the function of making it from other elements or

principles. Aerial plants when burned are found to contain potassium, though that mineral is not known to exist in the air or rain; and iron occurs in a like unaccountable manner in the blood of animals. Shell-fish, the corallina, and other denizens of the sea, have a framework chiefly consisting of carbonate of lime, although there is hardly a trace of lime in sea-water, except perhaps at the mouths of rivers. In fact, it may safely be affirmed that the coralline product of but a few years growth contains a greater quantity of carbonate of lime than all the lime that has ever been found or existed in the broadest or deepest seas. The snail produces the lime that composes its shell; and the land-crab is often found casting off its covering upon the ground and then creating a new one while wrapped in a few leaves that are entirely destitute of this substance. The egg of the bird has no lime in its yolk and albumen, and yet there is developed by incubation a structure of bone containing a larger quantity of that material than exists in the shell itself, so that the new formation seems to be from elsewhere. The minute beings called Foraminifera produced the white marble from which Paris is built. The diatoms are makers of flint. Their work exists under the city of Petersburg, Va., and Professor Ehrenberg discovered beds of living flint-producing creatures, the Diatomacae, at the depth of sixty feet under the city of Berlin. The notion of transmutation which superficial readers and masoners have so frequently attributed to the alchemists and other philosophers of the Middle Ages, it may thus be seen, is abundantly realized in the physical operations of the material world. Nature is a greater magician in her processes than any thaumaturgist on record. We perceive, then, that Creation, from the simplest monad to the highest animal, is characterized by manifold metamorphoses, and development has innumerable gradations. Polarity is manifested by attraction and repulsion, producing chemical affinity and even causing the mineral to assume, if not to approximate, the conditions of the vegetable. It induces the plant to exhibit the similitude of animal instinct; and in the animate races it expands into corporeal sensibility. It even forms and gives directions to our likes and dislikes; we are attracted to some as possessing affinity of nature and disposition to ourselves, and repelled from others as antipathetic and inimical. These natural safeguards are common to human beings and animals alike, and it is not often prudent or wholesome to disregard them. Life, in this stage of its development, has become more than mere existing. It is characterized by desires, impulses, and emotions. The various combinations of these, in the several forms of affection - hope, joy, contentment, and the opposites of hate, fear, anxiety, jealousy, anger, grief, melancholy - make up our moral being. The normal equilibrium of this department of our nature constitutes health and mental soundness, and its disturbance results in bodily disorders and insanities. The mind appears, therefore, so far as this reasoning seems to imply, to be an expansion and exaltation of the vital force, and an endowment of the animal races as well as of human beings. The psychic nature is correspondent to the corporeal. Its manifestations are in strict analogy to bodily conditions, and the organic forces are correlative with the common forces of what is denominated the inorganic world. The order of creation and development on this earth appears almost uniformly to have been in regular succession from forms that were rudimentary and imperfect to those that were more and more perfect, and from general types to specific groups and races. It seems to be a history beginning in the Laurentian rock-formation, perhaps with the diatoms that still exist and carry on operations as they did in that period so interminably remote.

Innumerable cycles have passed since that epoch, during which plants and animals have lived in the different stages of development: generally perishing with the term of geologic and climatic conditions in which they were originated, although many types and species have remained till our own day. The general law, if we may call it such, appears to have fixed the producing of animals and vegetation adapted to the conditions of the period or cycle of time, and, of course, their extinction as the conditions became changed beyond the power of adaptation. What is denominated special creation is a notion now very generally discarded. The Duke of Argyll, perhaps almost the latest champion of the former orthodoxy, declares that he does not believe that every species has been a separate creation. Yet everything, as we observe it, produces its like, or nothing. Not a type has changed since our earliest recorded history. Man, beast, bird, and insect are the same now as when the oldest nation was founded. Embryology, which many cite as evidencing the truth of the theory of evolution, follows nevertheless a uniform career, always by like causes and invariably with the same results. The thorn-bush never yields a grape, and the thistle is perpetually barren of figs. Baboons do not blossom out into men, nor chimpanzees into statesmen and philosophers, or even into the rudiments of such. Even protoplasm is never formed except from its parent living material. Nor does the struggle for existence, so characteristic of all animals that subsist by violence and rapine, ever exalt or modify their nature. Change of habit generally enfeebles more or less the vital energy. Creation, however, is not a question of centuries, ages, or even cycles ago. It dates not with a beginning in time, but only with our origin in the Creator. It is a process in constant operation. If any race now existing and necessary to the purposes now in force should be extirpated by some catastrophe, then the same causes which first introduced it into life would again become operative to bring it forth anew. Indeed, that which sustains existence is the same as that which originates it. We may not know how the species of plants and animals began, but we may be sure that they were produced by the same force or law which continues them. Matter or maternity pertains to Nature, but everything else is Divine. Perhaps the races of one geologic era have fitted the earth for occupation by their successors; perhaps, as every individual requires a mother, the physical organism of one species may have become, in the fulness of time and in some occult manner, as a maternal parent of the next - the agency by means of which the Divine Creator brought a new and superior one into existence. At any rate, every cycle and period has had its own races, fauna, and flora, and there has been the repeated genesis of new forms of life. Every type coming into existence has continued unchanged by inheritance till it has had its day. Dissolution has followed creation, and we know of no new production since Man appeared. Here we are introduced to a new being, of qualities and character which no animal possesses, and to which none may attain. The mental department of the human constitution extends far beyond the sphere of the organic, psychic, and vital forces. There are faculties transcending these, and to which they are subservient. While, therefore, it is not unusual to speak of the mind as comprising the disposition and inclinations, we nevertheless take likewise the more exalted sense of the term, and so understand it as having a broader scope of meaning and denoting a higher nature. It also includes the memory, understanding, and imagination. These are qualities which animals do not possess: they are peculiar to human beings alone. Hence

the animal, however exquisite its sensibilities and other endowments, is a world apart from man. Curiously enough, the history of its brain is so unlike that of the human being as to show no arrest of development, but a perpetual diversity. There is no connecting chain between the two, nor even the portions which a missing link might serve to unite, but a gulf immeasurable beyond all our powers to span. There was in man from the first an intellect capable of direct cognition and reason, able to acquire knowledge, preserve it, and impart it to others. Thus he was little less than the angels, invested by his Creator with honor and majesty, and made chief over all the animal tribes. Descartes, the French philosopher, taught that the entire soul was comprised in the thinking faculties, but he included with them the desires and feelings. Sir William Hamilton followed the German psychologists, and assigned to the interior nature a superior range of powers, declaring that the mind exerts energies and is the subject of modifications, of neither of which it is conscious. Fichte expressly affirms that no organic activity is possible without the concurrent operation of thought, and that beyond question this thought can exist only in the soul. Inasmuch, however, as it precedes sensation, the principle by which consciousness is awakened, it must necessarily remain itself unconscious. The acts of the morphologic and physical impulses are not conceivable without the constant operation of this same instinctive power and unconscious thinking. It is clear, therefore, that what are termed life-force, nerve-force, and mind-force, are correlated and interchangeable the one into the other - the supersensible, intellective part of our being belonging in the forefront. All that there is of us in nature and endowment is for the sake of this, because this is the essential part of our being - the older, nobler, aeviternal life. Modern science, despite the materialism and even atheism which some of its votaries affect, is compelled to accept these conclusions. All that can be signified by a material force is a force acting upon material substance and producing its own proper effects. All our conceptions of its nature are formed on our own consciousness of living effort, and energy called forth at the bidding of the will. All kinds of force are forms of one great central principle. Sir John Herschel, impressed by this conviction, declares of gravitation, which seems to be a purely physical as any of them, that it is but reasonable to regard it as the direct or indirect result of a consciousness or will existing somewhere. This concept is a wide divergence from superstition toward the effulgence of the sublimer truth. All through nature is harmony and evident purpose, indicative of supreme will and intelligence at one with energy. We are thus confirmed in that faith or higher perception by which it is apprehended that the cycles of eternity are arranged by the ordering of God, so that the things which are corporeally visible to us come into existence from sources that do not pertain to the phenomenal world. The twofold aspect of our mental and spiritual being is in perfect analogy to the structure of the body. Plato affirms that the immortal principle of the soul was originally with the Deity, and that the body was made for its vehicle; but that there was also a soul of a mortal nature, subject to the affections of desire, suffering, temerity, and fear, anger hard to be appeased, and hope. These two psychic natures are kept distinct by being assigned to different parts of the physical structure, the inferior soul to the body and the nobler soul or intellect to the head, which he declared to be "man's most divine organ and the ruler of our entire composition." The organic conformation of the body strikingly verifies this delineation. There are two nervous structures corresponding to the twofold psychic qualities. The ganglial or

sympathetic system belongs to the interior organism of the body, directing and sustaining the vital functions of nutrition, respiration, the circulation of the blood, calorification, glandular action, and, in short, every operation that gives us simply the conception of physical life. The solar ganglion at the epigastrium is the centre of this entire structure, the first in the order of evolution in embryonic life; and all the various parts of the body, in their several degrees of differentiation, appear to be outgrowths more or less directly from this beginning. It is placed in the very region at which, as the great philosopher declares, the impulsive or passionate nature comes in contact with the sensuous and appetitive propensity; while the seat of the cerebro-spinal organism is in the head. The organic or ganglial system is developed in all the lower animal races, and seems to be possessed by them in common with mankind. Instinct is unequivocally its function. This is manifested by the human infant in common with the inferior animals; and it is in no way conformable to the reasoning faculties, or to be modified by cultivation. The mental acts which are instinctive, or which are more commonly called "emotional," are directly associated with the organic nervous centres. Every new phase of life, every occurrence or experience which we encounter, produces its effects directly upon this central organism and the glandular structures. Emotional disturbance affects every physical function. At the fruition or disappointment of our hopes and wishes, or at any affectional excitement, the appetite for food is disturbed; we become languid and gloomy, or buoyant and cheerful. There is an analogy and a close connection between every malady of the body and some type of mental disorder, suggestive of causation and effect. The passions, fear, grief, anger, and even sudden joy, will at once involve the vital centres, sometimes even paralyzing the organic nervous system, disturbing or interrupting the normal glandular functions, and producing results more or less dangerous to life itself. The brain, or, more comprehensively, the cerebro-spinal nervous structure, is the organism in which man exceeds the measure of the animal kingdom. To it pertain sensation, thought, and the intellectual faculties. Its evolution appears to be in strict analogy to that of the body. The medulla oblongata, or, more properly, the olivary ganglion, is the beginning of the whole, and exhibits in its development the law of polarity as distinctly as the seed of a plant or tree. In one direction it sends forth the rudimentary cells which become the spinal column and nerves, and in the other the fibrous projections which in due time change to the group of ganglia denominated by some physiologists the common sensorium. The eyes and ears, and the organs of smell, taste, and feeling, are outgrowths, or we might say the antennae, of these ganglia; they proceed from the medulla, and the optic thalami constitute their common register. The whole sensory nervous system reports at this point all the impressions which it receives. Thus the medulla, conforming to the analogy of the solar ganglion and plexus, is at the centre of the cerebro-spinal system, giving energy to all its parts, enabling the organs of special sense, the nerves of motion, the lungs, and even the brain, to perform their several functions. It is the indicator, showing accurately and unerringly the normal or morbid conditions of the whole body, and guiding the sagacious diagnostician in his inquiry. Superior to all, and the end for which the whole corporeal structure exists, and of which it is the agent and minister, is the brain itself. It is accordingly prior to all in purpose, and last of all in development. Here mankind and the animal races, however closely they may have been affiliated before, now part company forever. Whatever transitions have been made in the various departments of nature have taken place with reference to this

consummation. This, as we have been taught in the religious oracles, is the creating of man in the image and after the likeness and simulacrum of Divinity. Perhaps, however, it is more properly the evolution. Closely related to the brain, and its auxiliary in all its works, is the cerebellum. Superficial theorizers have defined it as simply the organ of motion and instinct. This may be correct, but in man its office exceeds that limit. It is an organism that slumbers not, nor sleeps. When the brain begins its work, it depends upon its humbler associate for its completing. The mental faculties, of which the brain and the adjoining organisms are instruments, may be regarded as threefold in their order and classified as the sensuous, the reasoning, and the supersensuous or intellective. The sensuous faculties are associated with the sensorium, and are closely allied with the animal instinct and passion. They are manifested in the earlier years of life, but their predominance in the adult period is stigmatized as selfishness. The reasoning powers are also early in their unfolding. They are functions of the middle region, as well as ulteriorly of the cerebellum, and enable us to bring the impressions of the senses and our observation of events into orderly connections, and also to exercise due control over our actions and inclinations. They are the faculties that are chiefly cultivated in the discipline of our schools and other seminaries of learning, and excellence in this department indicates men of science and business. Nevertheless, in the older times, if the education had gone no further, the philosophers did not scruple to pronounce such persons ignorant, even including statesmen, scholars, and literary men in the category. The office of the little brain is here manifest. The various impressions and impulses are often dropped out of the consciousness before conclusions are reached and purposes formed. This silent organism, however, retains them; and so we are thinking and reasoning when unaware of the fact. In due time, perhaps not till hours, days, or longer periods are accomplished, the conclusion is reached, and the result is passed back into the consciousness, like new thinking or inspiration. This, we suppose, is what is incorrectly termed "unconscious cerebration." This shows why it is often so wise, when a proposition is hard to solve, to sleep over it; and why the first thoughts after waking are the finest, best, and most true. The cerebellum is emphatically the organ, if not of superior inspiration, certainly that of common sense. The supersensuous are the philosophic faculties, and we may enumerate them, like Plato, as cognition, superior discernment, and power to form correct judgment. They pertain to the coronary department of the head, the acrocephalon; and their cultivation and development constitute intelligence, the highest spiritual life. We may reasonably believe, therefore, that we will yet exceed the limitations which seem to surround us. There are more endowments for perception than the five senses that are commonly enumerated. Even the sense of touch is something more than mere feeling. We find a susceptibility to heat and cold which is altogether beyond it; we are conscious of the presence of individuals in our vicinity when the eyes and ears are closed, and we perceive by merest contact whether they are men or women. The revelations of mesmerism disclose a faculty analogous to sight without the agency of eyes, and hearing without the employing of ears. The mysterious khabar of the Orientals appears to have its place in the category of human faculties. Thought is transferred from one to another

without going through the required channels of sense. We pass beyond the limitations which time and space seem to interpose and which have been generally regarded as exceeding the range of our physical organs. Prophetic vaticination has been the faith of human beings in every age of the world, and its foundation of fact has manfully resisted the assaults of disbelievers. The Hebrew story of the prophet Elisha, who told the Israelitish king of the secret plots and machinations of his Syrian adversary, is amply corroborated in the traditions of every ancient people. There has always been anxiety in humankind to supplement their powers. Even the mystic ladder of Jacob would have failed of its importance, except that its top was in the heavens and the angels descended upon it and went upward again. We call this superstition, but it is what the term actually means - the exercise of an over-sense. The human soul has faculties more or less dormant, which surpass the electric wire and the marvelous possibilities of the photophone. There are and there always will be manifestations in this world, both phenomenal and entheastic, from the world beyond, which those who are wise will understand. The sensibility which exists more or less in relation to spiritual beings and occult forces will doubtless enable us to find the key to the whole matter. "Besides the phenomena which address the senses," says Professor Tyndall, "there are laws, principles, and processes which do not address the senses at all, but which can be spiritually discerned." Nature exists because of divinity, and will never be perfected except as divinity shall be evolved. Man, with his divine endowment and possibilities, runs his prescribed career in this world and likewise in other forms of existence. We may take for certainty that he has been a rational, thinking, intelligent being -always with the ability to know, to observe, to remember, to contemplate, and to speak in words that are symbols and expressions of thought. "Surely," said Elihu to Job, "a divine spirit is in men; and the inspiration of the Mighty One maketh them intelligent." He comes into this world not as the offspring of any beast aping humanity, or with any inheritance of degradation, but as the creation and counterpart of the Supreme Divinity. He exceeds the measure of any paragon of animals; and his every instinct and appetite, however closely resembling those of the inferior races, is capable, as theirs is not, of an exaltation and refinement that lift it above the order of the animal realm. He always, as a consequence, possessed the genius of civilization, that aptness for life in society of which the perfect conception is the abnegation of selfishness, the intuitive perception of truth, and the lofty sentiment of veneration. The archaic belief, itself probably an intellection, that human souls are so many beings that have descended from the supernal world into the conditions of time and sense, was very apt and full of truth. The statement in the Book of Origins tells the story: "The Supreme Divinity formed man-dust from the earth - and caused him to breathe in his nostrils the inspiration of life: and Man is a living soul." It was first the ideation, then the combining with objective substance. Such is the nativity of humankind in this world of time and sense, and their development will always be in keeping with it. That which cometh down from heaven is that which ascendeth thither. The draught of the water of Oblivion which shall extinguish the thoughts and desires of earth-life will quicken the remembrance of our real being and existence. (Metaphysical Magazine, vol. 1, no. 2, Feb., 1895)

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Evil - Alexander Wilder Evil is in almost every scene Of life more or less forward. - Philip James Bailey "Why God no kill the Devil?" This question of questions, the poor savage Friday puts to his master in Defoe's famous story. It is the weaker link in theologies which impairs confidence in the surety of the entire chain. If there exists an energy in the universe able to resist the Divine Beneficence and ruin human beings in its malice, it is not possible to attribute almighty power to God and to have firm confidence in the Supreme Benevolence and Wisdom. Repellent as this conclusion may be to our better consciousness, it seems inevitable. The only way of escape apparent to view is to be found in grappling boldly with the notion itself. The concept of a personal antagonist to the Supreme Being that was always employed in effort to mar his works and was incessantly interfering with them for that purpose, has been entertained for many centuries and even become a distinct point of religious belief. The description of Milton in the poem, Paradise Lost, has been accepted as almost as authoritative as the Sacred Text. It has also been inculcated that the Satan who is represented in the introductory chapters of the Book of Job, as attending in the assemblage of the "sons of God" when they "came to present themselves before the Lord" was the malignant Power of Evil. Not only have both Roman and Grecian Christendom adopted the dogma of a chief diabolic personality, but it exists also in the religious systems of Islam and Judaism: It may be traced back from these to the later Zoroastrian speculations, in which Anramanyas, the Dark Intelligence, is constantly contending against Ahura-Mazda, the Lord of Light. It is significant, however, that in the earlier conceptions of personified wrong, the Evil Potency had been previously revered as a Deity. He was, in fact, nothing else than the god of some former faith or alien people, that conquest or change in worship had displaced from supremacy. In this way the Indra of primitive India became esteemed as an evil genius in Eran, the devas or divinities of one Aryan people were transformed into devils among the other, the Seth or Typhon of Egypt became Satan the Adversary. Even Anramanyas, the Dark Intelligence of the Avesta, was at first the twin to Ahura-mazda, simply a negative to the positive, and thus cooperating in the work of creation to decompose and disintegrate in order that the creative energy may mold and fashion anew. Thus in its origin as a moral concept and as it was actually regarded, the Evil Principle was an energy not wholly and absolutely wicked, but only a perversion incident to the imperfections of conditioned existence. It was not till later times that it was considered as a personality. As in the ancient Zoroastrian ethics the lie was an object of special abhorrence, and every species of wrong was comprehended in the term, the great Adversary was described as a "Liar from the beginning" and the Father of lies.

We may not assume, however, to be able to explain, or even to understand the problems which relate to the primal operations of the universe. A cup cannot hold another of greater, or even of equal dimensions, and we may not pretend to grasp a question that transcends the compass of our own minds. Nevertheless we are by no means precluded from gaining some intelligent perception of the laws and relations which exist over us and by which we are influenced. Every such effort, we may be confident, will enlarge our powers and enable us to learn something of their operation. There is no secret in the universe that is arbitrarily withheld from our knowing, and we are precluded from the perceiving of it by our own weakness and immaturity. It must be acknowledged, then, first of all, that the universe has its cause and origin in Divinity. Goodness only is lasting and permanent, and accordingly the Deity being absolutely good, the motions and operations of the universe are in harmony, and all means are adapted to their proper ends. We are not able with our limited faculties to explore the depths of the Divine Power and Wisdom, yet the higher the ideal which we attain, the better, wiser and purer we shall become. We cannot suppose that Evil is the counterpart of the Supreme Right. From its peculiar nature as a non-enduring and destructive agency, it is not an end, and so of necessity it can only be a means. It must accordingly be simply a medium by which ulterior good is effected. As a servant it may have no alternative except to accomplish the will of the master. Whether the obedience is rendered willingly is a matter of less importance; the necessity to render it is the superior law. It is nevertheless ill to do evil in order that good may be the outcome, for all wrong-doing reacts perniciously upon the doer. Evil must be regarded accordingly as being of the transitory, the temporizing, and evanescent. It must always in the end give place to the Right, which alone is self-sustaining and perennial. It has been contemplated in various lights, as accorded with the habitude and disposition of the individual. Some regard it as an unfortunate condition, the result of circumstances - or of heredity, and perhaps, as the sequence of wrongs committed in former terms of existence. Thus when the disciples encountered the man who had been blind from his birth, they asked of Jesus: "Rabbi, did this man sin, or his parents, that he was born blind?" Only some such cause could they perceive for such a calamity. The opinion, however, which is more commonly entertained, regards evil as something not of necessity intrinsically wicked, but as due chiefly to the limited conditions of existence. Certainly whatever may be our convictions in regard to the Creator, we cannot think of him as bringing into actual being an essence or personality in any respect equal to himself. An Evil Power possessing omnipotence and ubiquity may not be intelligently admitted. Such an essence would extend like a deity through the universe and diffuse itself over the entire creation. We must therefore understand that the mention of the evil one as a personality is only a figure of speech by which unworthy motives, suspicions and desires are represented. "It is not possible that evils shall be extirpated," says Sokrates to Theodoros, "for it is necessary that there should always be something opposed to the Good. Nor can they inhere as an attribute in the gods, but from necessity they exist in the realm of mortal nature and in this inferior region." This necessity is incident to imperfection. Absolute Divinity alone is perfect. Every creature is less in every respect, and that limitation as contrasted with superior excellence is faulty and evil. Under this head may be included the defects of body and character, and everything in short that impedes proper activity, or

causes pain and suffering, or in any way works harm and injury. Every quality which is to be considered good when under right conditions, may be a source of harm through excess or deficiency, or when out of its proper place. Thus selfishness is normal and perfectly unobjectionable in the infant, but in maturer years it becomes a vice, a moral degeneracy like an arrest of development, and is the source of every kind of cruelty and wrongdoing. Out of it grows the lust of dominion, of inordinate wealth, and disregard of what is due to others. Even what may be considered proper and salutary at one period, or under one peculiar condition, is likely to be out of place, and actually wrong when the state of things has changed. What is right and suitable for the child becomes widely different when the time and duty have come to put away the childish things. For "The old order changeth, yielding place to new, And God fulfils himself in many ways Lest one good custom should corrupt the world." From the evils that are incident to the imperfection of the inferior nature and the conditions of life in this sphere of existence a way leads to those of the moral nature in which voluntary action has a leading part, and which are to be recognized as faults of character, and when in aggravated form, as vice and crime. Indeed, they are closely affiliated through the intermingling and intimate relation of the psychal and moral natures. Thus, we may remark, that disease, which is a breach of order and a departure from healthy life in the body, is likewise to be regarded as an immorality, of which there should be reformation. Sin, in its proper generic meaning, denotes a missing of the aim, failure to reach the desired end, a being at fault, rather than any profound turpitude, or wickedness. When, however, it is voluntary, when there is deliberate disregard of right, it has become positive wrong-doing, willful injury, and actual culpability. The whole moral and physical nature is thereby contaminated and made vicious and corrupt. The story of the Garden of Eden in the book of Genesis, is supposed by many to explain the introduction of sin into the world. Upon such an hypothesis the actual existence of the tree of knowledge of good and evil would imply that evil itself already existed before man had come upon the scene. It seems plain, however, that the account is figurative, and has a meaning very different. The knowing of good and evil is a token of adult life (Ch. Isaiah, vii, 15, 16 and Epistle to the Hebrews, v. 14). The proper interpretation will doubtless refer it to the period of childhood and the passing into maturity. As all human beings are subject to the infirmities of imperfect condition, it follows that all have erred. The power to choose right and wrong would be thus exercised, even when the missteps are without ill intentions. All are accordingly liable to suffering and pain in consequence of errors and are under the necessity of guiding their steps by the aid of the wisdom and discipline which they acquire by their experience. All that we really know of relations and obligations, all that pertains to duty generally is what we have acquired by experience. There is doubtless a somewhat of recollection likewise from other sources which forms a basis of convictions, and promotes them into principles of action, but it is discipline which develops the character. Thus what has been apprehended by our limited view as evil is exhibited in a different aspect. We now perceive that we are in actual need of it in our life here. In order to know ourselves more fully and rightly, and in order to know more perfectly what is right

and just and what is to be discarded, we require a course of training and exercise indefinitely long which it is the office of evil to afford. It is accordingly a necessary part of our education. Without this experience many of our faculties and qualities would remain dormant and in abeyance. Many advantages are thus presented which otherwise would not have existed for us. Because of untoward adventures and unfortunate experiences in various forms and particulars, we each of us have become what we are. An agency which is necessary for these results cannot belong outside the pale of the Divine Goodness. Its place is clearly within the number of instrumentalities by means of which the world runs its course. There is injury in one direction but benefit in another which is resultant from it. It may seem to be malignant impulse, sometimes from angry Providence, sometimes from human malice, and in the latter case may even be from design to do harm, yet benefit is certain to be the ulterior result which it produces and promotes. "Evil and good are God's right hand and left. By ministry of Evil, good is clear, And by temptation, virtue." Thus the patriarch Joseph when his brethren are before him who had sold him into slavery, refrains from reproaching them, for their cruel unkindness. "God sent me before you," says he; "it is not you that sent me hither, but God." Yet the act was totally unworthy, and no intimation is given that the result justified it in any respect. It is simply a providence in the order of things that good shall come out of evil, as well as that there shall be good in everything evil, but this never serves to make the wrong action just and right. There is no sanction for evil doing. Whatever the benefit that may arise from any such action, the penalty inheres and is certain to befall the doer, without evasion or substitution. Perhaps the hell which has been so assiduously described and threatened as a place or state of endless punishment for the impenitent, is happily passing out of belief. It seems like a sacrilegious libel upon Divinity to declare that he is persistently angry, that he has an attitude of justice which demands expiation by hopeless torments, or that he can find his justice met by any inflictions upon an innocent person, human or divine. We have good reason to believe otherwise, that however heavy the load of guilt there may be in any case, there is a way of reforming, even if only by being vastated and generated anew. A Hebrew psalmist acknowledged having been delivered from the lowest hell. Nevertheless it may be accounted certain that there is hell, and that it will continue as long as human beings exist. It pertains to every individual, and every one is certain to have a taste of its fire and anguish. The whole story is told by the Oriental poet: "I sent my soul into the Infinite; Some lesson of that life to spell; And presently my soul returned to me, And said: "Myself am heaven, myself am hell." The whole is realized by each of us in our own personality. As the apostle taught, the works of evil and the fruits of good, are from our own nature. We perceive them so interblended that there is a taint of selfishness and unworthy motive when we do well; and there is something in the action not absolutely evil when we do wrong. Nor can we

measure one another in such matters by one common rule. An act may be wholesome in one and evil in another; or wholesome at one time and under one condition, and wrong in another. One may have to encounter powerful temptation, while the other finds in the same thing little that is alluring. Each has his own truth in which to abide; each has something peculiar to himself to put to silence and suppress. Evil is therefore simply the reverse side of the world-picture, the opposing pole, and its office is to incite the human soul to activity and thereby eliminate its defects and impurities. Its great strength lies in ignorance, an unreason that will not comprehend the better. This is an unclean demon that is not easily expelled; but with that expulsion occurring all things become possible. It suits not the eternal laws of good That evil be immortal. (Metaphysical Magazine, vol. 19, no. 7, Sept., 1906) (A different and longer version of this article was published in The Word, Oct., 1906, and in Vol. I, Later Platonists of this series.) -----------------

THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE ZOROASTERS - Alexander Wilder When I read and contemplate the oracular utterances of Zarathustra, I am vividly impressed by their sweetness and purity, and by the familiarity, full of reverence, which he always manifests in his communings with the Divine Being. Without arrogance or vanity he interrogates Ahura Mazda respecting himself, his works and will, and concerning what is beneficial to human beings. The divinity replies to him as a man talking with his friend, setting forth the good law, the reward of a pure life and the obligation to right action. "Here is code for man and toiler," says Michelet - "not for the idler, Brahman or Monk - not abstinence and revery, but active energy, all comprised in this: 'Be pure to be strong; be strong to be creative.'" "God is the ground of all existence," says Aristotle, "and the knowledge of divine things is the highest philosophy." Sir William Jones in his sixth anniversary discourse as President of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, making the ancient Persians his theme, and citing the Dabistan for his authority, describes the primeval religion of Eran as identical with what Sir Isaac Newton declared the most ancient of all worships: "A firm belief that one supreme God made the world by His power, and continually governed it by His providence; a pious fear, love and adoration of Him; a due reverence for parents and aged persons; a fraternal affection for the whole human species, and a compassionate tenderness even for the brute creation." Other writers have endeavored to show that a simple faith like this depicted by Mohsan Fani was characteristic of the Aryan tribes of Upper Asia. Michelet would make us believe that there were no castes, no mages, no kings among the archaic Eranians, but

that the father of each household was mage and sovereign of all belonging to it; that the fire on the family altar-hearth received homage as being the symbol of the life-imparting spirit; that the domestic animal was beloved and magnanimously treated, according to its rank; and that the individual revered himself as necessary to the universal existence. General Forlong alludes to it as "the first Western Book-Faith of man, culminating in the development of a spiritual religion - Zoroastrianism - to which Europe owes much of its early cosmogony, and nearly all its faith." What is now known of the Zoroastrian doctrine is chiefly derived from the Avesta, or Book of Wisdom. Originally this was a collection of twenty-one nasks, or divisions, embracing the current literature of the ancient Eranian people, religious topics, philosophy, astronomy, medicine, agriculture and social life. The whole perished at the Macedonian conquest, when Alexander burned Persepolis, and there have been since recovered only the Vendidad complete, several fragments, the Yasna, Vispered, and Gathas or sacred hymns. These have been marred more or less by the copyists, as may easily be perceived. It should be borne in mind that it was a practice in former times for scribes and teachers to incorporate their own glosses and explanations into the works of great writers, and that few books that were extant before the invention of the art of printing escaped such tampering. It has been remarked that the whole theosophy of the Avesta revolved around the person of Zoroaster. The supreme One speaks to him alone out of the fire, and instructs him in the pure doctrine. The Sacred Law of Ahura Mazda inculcated the obligation to truth in speech and action the supreme merit of industry, and of goodness transcending all. Words so divine might not be ascribed to a man speaking from his own understanding. The Eranian sage is therefore always represented as uttering only oracles which had been delivered to him. The Parsi Creed states this in concise terms: "The religion of goodness, truth and justice, Bestowed upon his creatures by the Lord, Is the pure faith with Zarathrustra taught." Opinion is curiously divided in regard to the personality of the original Zoroaster. The disputes relate to his actual existence, the age in which he lived, and to the actual source of the Mazdean doctrine. Modern writers assign to him a period somewhat exceeding thirty centuries ago, but Aristotle and others date him back six thousand years before they lived. He is called a Baktrian, and yet is also represented as a native of Rhaga, in Media, and even to have flourished at Babylon. The very name is given in numerous forms and meanings. It is commonly written Zoro Aster, which in the Semitic dialects would denote the son or priest of the goddess Istar or Astarte. The primitive form Zarathustra, of which it is probably an abridgment, appears to signify simply a senior or spiritual master. The successors of the sage bore the same title as being the spiritual chiefs of districts, while over them was Zarathustratema, or Chief Zarathustra. But the founder of the Masdean religion was distinguished by his family designation, and was called Zarathustra Spitaman. Tradition has also set him forth as the inventor of the Magian rites, and also as an investigator of the origin of the universe, and observer of the planetary revolutions.* Another account describes him as engaged in contest with Ninus or Ninip, the

representative of the Semitic religion; he employing the philosophic knowledge of the Far East, and the other the Mystic learning of the Chaldeans. This would be in keeping with the legends of Zahak, the Serpent-King of Bavri, who was said to have expelled Yima, or Jemship, from his Paradise, and was afterward himself overcome. Doubtless many of the accounts given in the Avesta are allegoric, and Darmstetter, the last translator of that work, rejects the belief that Zoroaster ever existed. -------------* One ingenious Parsi author and expositor gives a version of the Confession of Faith, the Ahuna-vairya, which is concurrent with this description: "As is the will of the Eternal One, So through the harmony of perfect thought His energy brings forth the visible world, And His power sustains the rolling spheres." --------------Clement, of Alexander, seeks to identify him with Eros, the son of Ariminios, whom Plato describes in The Republic as having been slain in battle, but as reviving again after some days, and giving an account of the destinies of certain noble souls, as he had witnessed their allotment. This was probably a current tale among the later Persians. The Parsis have a book entitled, "The Revelations of Ardha-Viraf," which gives a detailed account of scenes in heaven and hell, as beheld by Ardha-Viraf during the visit of a week which his soul passed to those regions, leaving his body for that length of time. Ammianus Marcellinus has also cited an opinion as from the great philosopher: "Plato, that greatest authority upon famous doctrines, states that the Magian religion, known by the mystic name of Machagistia, is the most uncorrupted form of worship in things divine; to the philosophy of which, in primitive ages, Zoroaster, the Baktrian, made many additions, drawn from the Mysteries of the Chaldeans." The Zoroastrian system, in its essential character, is a very exalted monotheism. It was such in its inception; it continued such all through the times when evil and persecution overshadowed its fortunes; it is such now as professed by the Ghebers and Parsis. A fire so perpetual, a light so extensive, an energy so penetrating, must proceed from the one fountain. True, there are many similar utterances in the Rig-Veda and in what remains to us of the lore of the Akkadians, the Assyrians and Egyptians. These continued chiefly, however, as historic monuments, while Zoroastrianism is still a faith that inspires a people to virtue, veracity and goodness. The plurality of good and bad spiritual powers which tainted the vulgar worship with polytheism and idolatry was a pure concept with those who first described them. "The different gods are members of one soul," say Yaska, writing twenty-three hundred years ago. "God, though he is one, has nevertheless many names," says Aristotle, adding as the explanation, "because He is called according to the states into which he always enters anew." To the popular apprehension the nomina became numina; the names were regarded as belonging to different divinities; yet perhaps this sentiment of multiplicity could not easily be avoided. No one term in human speech can express the All of Deity. We

ourselves behold the One or the Many, according as we contemplate godhood from the exterior or external vision. The story of Cain and Abel seems to be in analogy with the prehistoric conflicts of the archaic period. The Eranians were agriculturists and cultivated the arts and virtues of civilized life; the Devas, or Deva-Worshipers, were nomadic shepherds. In history the agriculturist uproots the shepherd, and it is a curious coincidence in this case that dynasty of ancient Eran was known as the Kainean or Cainite, while the chief divinity of the Semitic peoples was Bel, or Abelios. The conflict of the remote ages was at its height when the movement began which should permanently affect the usages and traditions of the Eranian communities. It can hardly be proper, however, to ascribe the origin of the Mazdean worship and philosophy to any simple individual. History and tradition seldom preserve accurately the memorials of the beginning of a faith. Great thoughts are afloat in the spiritual atmosphere, and thus are apprehended by those who are in the suitable condition of mind. Religions that are now extant are more or less the outgrowths from older beliefs, differentiated anew by the genius of the peoples and individuals by whom they are embraced. This is illustrated in the examples afforded within our own historic period. The faith promulgated by Mohamed had been already taught by the Hanyfs, and he himself at first professed to be of their number. After his death the men who had opposed him became dominant in Islam and modified his teachings, adding many Persian and Semitic features. The story of the Bridge of Judgement was taken from the Avesta. Augustin asserted that Christianity had existed many centuries before the era of the Apostles, and the philosophies of the Far East were older than the teachers to whom they are accredited. The attempt has been made to show a Buddhistic influence in the origin of the Moslem religion. The historian, Ammianus Marcellinus, has preserved an account of a journey into upper India by Hystaspis, the father of Dareios, and his discourses with the Brachmanes, a sect of philosophers. "He was instructed by their teaching," says this writer, "in the knowledge of the motions of the universe, and of the heavenly bodies, and in pure religious rites; and so far as he was able to collect these, he transfused a certain portion into the creed of the Mages." This story, however, is but a garbled relic of an older tradition. Gustasp, or Vistaspa, an ancient king of Baktria, was doubtless the personage denoted. He is commemorated in the Avesta as the first who promulgated the Mazdean religion in his dominions. Doctor Haug, however, denies the whole matter; citing a passage translated by him from the Fravardin-Yasht, in which the first Zoroaster is described as "that ingenious man who spoke such good words, who was the promulgator of wisdom, who was born before Gautama had a revelation." The earliest record of the official promulgation of the Mazdean religion and philosophy, except what is found in the Avesta, appears to have been given in the famous proclamation of Dareios Hystaspis at Baghistan. At that point, on the western frontier of ancient Media, in the heart of the Zagros Mountains, beside the highway from Babylon to Ekbatana, there stands a precipitous rock seventeen hundred feet high. Upon its front, three hundred feet from the bottom, is an inscription in cuneiform characters, in three languages, the Old Persian, the Assyrian and Skythic or Turanian. It was long the perplexity of scholars. Finally it was deciphered in 1845 by Sir Henry C. Rawlinson, and afterward by other Orientalists. They found it to be an account of the circumstances

attending the accession of Dareios as "Great King." In it is set forth the establishing anew of the Mazdean worship: "Says Dareios, the King: 'I have made elsewhere a Book of the Aryan language that formerly did not exist; And I have made the text of the divine Law [the Avesta], and a Commentary of the Divine Law, and the Prayers and the Traditions; And it was written and I sealed it. And then the Book was restored by me in all nations, and the nations followed it.'" We do not know the century or even the millennium in which the first Zoroaster was born. He is described in the Yasna as "famous in the Aryan Home-Country," where the Hindus and Eranians once dwelt together. "The few philosophic ideas which may be discerned in his says," says Dr. Haug, "show that he was a great and deep thinker, who stood above his contemporaries, and even the most enlightened men of many subsequent centuries." He is described in the Sacred Writings as possessing rare spiritual endowments, and as living in intimate communion with Divine natures. His utterances have been denominated Magic, but only in the primitive sense of the term, a Wisdom-Religion. The Avesta denounces vehemently the arts of sorcery and the incantations employed in the rites of the deva-worshipers. At that period, these consisted of wandering Aryan families addicted to freebooting, and without permanent abodes. They worshiped the devas and pitris, or spirits of ancestors, and had Indra and Baruna as their superior divinities. The Eranians discarded all these as evil demons, but paid homage to the Ahuras, or spirits of the World of Light. In this system of worship and philosophy goodness is the central principle. Every hymn and every prayer is an acknowledgment of the Divine Goodness and Justice impersonated in Ahura Mazda. The Good will, leader of the heavenly army, carries on the Conflict of the Ages against Araman, the Dark Impulse, not to hurt, but to save his adversary. The battles are all without bloodshed or any cruel violence. Every act that beautified the Earth, that extended the field of usefulness, that bettered the condition of human beings, that wrought the suppression of hatred and the predominance of good, was a conquest. "Let every one this day, both man and woman, choose a governing principle," cries the great Zoroaster, standing before the altar. "In the beginning there were two - the Good and the Bad in thought and word and deed. Choose one of these two; be good, not base. You cannot belong to both. You must choose the originator of the worst actions, or the true holy spirit. Some may choose the worse allotment; others worship the Most High by means of faithful action." "The clear moral note, prominent through the whole cycle of the Zoroastrian religion, has here been struck," says Frances Power Cobbe. "The 'Choice of Scipio' was offered to the Iranians by their prophet three thousand years ago, even as it is offered to us today. 'Choose one of the two spirits; be good, not base.'"

Zoroaster laid the foundation of his theosophy by proclaiming the Mazda, the One Supremely Wise, as the Chief Ahura, the "primeval Spirit," the Creator of the Universe, the Coming Father, "God who is the One that always was and is and will be." This Ahura Mazda is the Source of the two, the Light and Dark Intelligences. "In his wisdom," says the Yasna, "he produced the Good and the Negative Impulse..... Thou art he, O Mazda, in whom the last cause of both these is hidden." There is in every one, Zoroaster declared, a good and holy will, a positive will of righteousness. The reflection of this good mind is its negative evil mind, the lower nature following its instincts, and incapable of choosing aright. The earlier Mazdeans thus included these Positive and Negative principles in their concept of the Divine Nature, but did not thereby impair their perception of the Divine Goodness. It was natural, however, to speak of these attributes as personal essences, and this doubtless led the later Zoroasters to treat of them as so many distinct beings. The seven archangels or Amshaspands of the later Zoroastrian theosophy, were but modes of Divine manifestation - the one Ahura Mazda, or Living Essence, represented in seven qualities as Wisdom, Goodness, Veracity,* Power, Will Health and immortality. The Rig-Veda also declares that "the Wise in their hymns represent under many forms, the spirit that is but one." Indeed, even in later periods, it seems that only two or three of the Amshaspands were regarded as being other than simple qualities treated of as personalities."** Several of them are enumerated in an ancient hymn in conformity with this idea: "He gives us by his most holy spirit, the good mind (vohu manu), which springs from good thoughts, words and actions - also fullness, long life, prosperity and understanding." -----------* Lying was regarded by the ancient Persians as the vilest of wicked deeds, and leprosy was regarded as its punishment. See II Kings v, 25-27; Herodotus I:139. One title of the divinity Mithras was "Lord of Truth," which seems to have been adopted in Jewish usage. - Isaiah lxvi, 16. ** In Exodus iii and elsewhere the "angel of the Lord" is mentioned as being the Deity himself. ------------In like manner the devas, or evil spirits, were chiefly regarded as bad moral qualities or conditions, though they are often mentioned as individuated existences. They have their origin, not by first creative act, but in the errant thought of Human beings. "These bad men produce the devas by their pernicious thoughts," the Yasna declares. The upright, on the other hand, destroy them by good action. Always before the mind, like a beautiful and sublime prospect, was the vision of the Light Eternal. A spiritual and invisible world preceded and remained about this material world, as its prototype, origin and upholding energy. Innumerable myriads of spiritual essences were distributed throughout the universe. These were the Frohars or Fravashis, the ideal or typical forms of all living things in heaven and earth. In the early periods they were designated as psychic beings, and venerated as ancestral and guardian spirits. "This doctrine," says Professor Tiele, "recurring in one shape or another among all nations of antiquity, received among the Eranians a special development and in a higher form was adopted into the Zarathustrian system from the very beginning."

Through the Frohars, the hymn declares, the Divine Being upholds the sky, supports the earth, and keeps pure and vivific the waters of preexistent life. They are the energies in all things, and each of them, led by Mithras, is associated in its time and order with a human body.* Everything, therefore, which is created or will be created, has its Frohar, which contains the cause and reason of its existence. They are stationed everywhere to keep the universe in order and to protect it against the potencies of evil. Thus they are allied to everything in nature; they are ancestral spirits and guardian angels, attracting all human beings to the right, and seeking to avert from them every deadly peril. They are immortal souls, living before our birth into this earth, and surviving after death. Thus, as is set forth in the Mazdean philosophy, the eternal world is an ocean of living intelligence, a milky sea of very life, from which all mortals are generated, sustained and afforded purification from evil. ------------* In the later Platonic theosophy archangels, angels, demons, heroes or half-gods, and souls not yet bodied were all included. At this period the Mithraic form of the Zoroastrian system had spread over the Roman world. ------------Thus the human soul coming into this world of time and sense, has always its guardian, its own law or spiritual essence in the invisible region. In fact, the two are never really separated. When the term of existence here is over it abides for three days and nights around the body from which it has withdrawn. It meets its celestial counterpart in the form of a beautiful maiden, and is conducted over the Bridge of Judgement of the heavenly paradise, and into the everlasting Light. Conversely to this the wicked soul also remains three days and nights at the head of the corpse inhaling the odors of the charnel, and then goes forth into scenes of an opposite character, entering finally into the presence of Evil Mind in the world of Darkness. There to abide till the period of redemption and restitution.* -----------* This account of the two souls and their fate is preserved in a fragment of the Hadokht-nask, and also in the Minokhirid. Compare also Matthew xii, 40, or Acts of the Apostles iii, 21, relating to the same subjects. -----------It is predicted in the Zamyad-Yasht that the Good Spirit will overcome the Evil Intelligence; that the Truth will smite the lie and the Evil-doer be deprived of his dominion. The later Zoroasters and teachers enlarged and transformed the Mazdean theosophy into a more complex, theurgic system. They were doubtless led to this through the influence of the Magian sacerdotal castes of Media and Babylon. Taking the analogy of the seven planets they devised a college of Seven Amshaspands or Celestial Benefactors. Of these they made Ahura Mazda first and chief. Added to these was the assemblage of Yazatas or angels, of whom Mithras, the god of truth and light, was lord. The Frohars, or guardian spirits, seem to have been included with these, and they were assigned to habitations in the stars.*

-------------* It was a Pythagorean doctrine, and it was recognized in the Mysteries that souls came from the galaxy or milky sea into the sublunary world to take up their abode in human bodies. --------------In the Bundahish, a work completed during the Sassanide period, the Amshaspands were supplemented and antagonized by a Council of Devas, seven in number, analogous to the Seven Evil Gods or angels of the lower region of the sky, as set forth in the Assyrian Tablets. They were Aeshma Deva, or Asmodens, the three Hindu gods, Indra, Saurva or Agni, and Nayanhatya, and two others personifying Thirst and Penury, with Araman or Angramainyas, the Dark Intelligence, as their prince. There were also an infinitude of devas of lower grade, and drujas, an order of female spirits whose chief pursuit was the alluring of good men from rectitude. These innumerable spiritual essences need not embarrass us. It is hardly rational, when we observe the endless forms and grades of living things in the realm of nature about us, that we should imagine that there was a total blank of life of all conditions about the spiritual region of being. Our plummet may not sound the infinite and enable us to bring up living substances from the ocean; yet we are not authorized on that account to doubt the being and presence of God, or to deny that there are intelligent spiritual beings. Nevertheless, both the Amshaspands and the Arch-Devas, the good and bad angels, and other essences were considered rather as spiritual qualitites than as beings that had an objective existence. At best, during the earlier periods, they were regarded as pervading all things as elements of their substance. Hence it was taught that good works drove away the devas and actually destroyed them, and that the sacred utterance, the Ahuna-Vairya, mastered the Prince of Evil himself. The essential nature of Evil is simply opposition; the Dark Impulse only follows the creative operations of Ahura Mazda, producing whatever may work them injury. Indeed, the "dualism" of the Parsi theosophy, when critically examined as to its intrinsic character, is found to denote simply and purely the two aspects of the Divine operation - the interior and external, the spiritual and natural, subjective being and objective existence, organization and dissolution. Both these have their place, if we contemplate them as to their respective functions, and they are necessary alike in the order of nature; but when the latter and lesser is exalted and esteemed above the other, it is thereby perverted from its office, and becomes morally evil. Behind this two fold classification the Bundahish places the one sole Divine Essence, the Zervan, or "Ancient of Days." This Divinity is the impersonation of Eternity itself, and identical with the One God prior to entity and essence, delineated in the latter Platonic writings. His introduction into the Persian theosophic system helped to dispose of hard metaphysic problems, which have perplexed the thinkers in all centuries. The Zoroastrian teachings were essentially ethical, and inculcate with strenuous earnestness, veneration for the pure law. By this is denoted homage to the Supreme Being, to the guardian spirits and benefactors and especially to the personal protector of the worshiper. By prayer was signified the hearty renouncing of evil, and complete harmony with the Divine will. "To attain prayer," says the Yasna, "is to attain to a perfect

conscience. The good seed of prayer is virtuous conscience, virtuous thoughts and virtuous deeds." It is recorded that Zoroaster asked of Ahura Mazda, "What form of invocation expresses every good thing?" He replied: "The prayer Ashem." This is the Confession: "Purity is the highest good; blessed is he who is completely pure." Zoroaster asked again: "What prayer equals in greatness, goodness and fitness all things beneath the heavens, the universe of stars and all things that are pure?" The Holy One answered him: "That one, O Spitman* Zarathustra, in which all evil thoughts and words and deeds are renounced." Every Mazdean was obligated to follow a useful calling. The one which was regarded as the most meritorious was the subduing and tilling of the soil. The abundance of corn repelled the evil demons. The telling of lies was considered a shameful enormity, and hence commerce was held in low repute, and the owing of debt was looked upon as disgraceful, because of the tendency to deception and falsehood. The man must marry, but only a single wife, and by preference she should be of kindred blood.** ------------* Spitaman was the surname of the family or clan of which the first Zoroaster was a member. ** Compare Genesis xx, 23; xxiv, 3, 40; xxviii, 2, 8, 9; also Exodus vi 20 and Samuel II xiii, 13. -------------To foul a stream of water was considered impious. Individual worthiness was not thought to be solely the profit and advantage of the one possessed of it, but as an addition to the whole power and volume of goodness in the universe. Such was the rule of conduct left by the Eranian sages as the safe path for human endeavor: "Heroic husbandry, the energetic struggle of Good against Evil, the life of pure Light in labor and in justice." This simple faith of Eran and the kingdom of Anzan was promulgated by Dareios over the whole Persian dominion for all the nations to obey. In the wars with Greece it came into direct conflict with the worship of Apollo, Demeter, and Bacchus, and its progress was arrested by the defeat of Xerxes at Salamis. But none the less did it shed its influence over the world. The torch of Grecian philosophy was lighted at the altar of Zoroaster, and its expositors now flourished in Ionia, Thace and Attika. Then Plato rose and placed the copestone on their work. He gathered up all that had been taught by those before him, both Ionian and Oriental, including the under-meaning of the Mystic Rites, and presented it in a new form and rendering. The Dialectic of Plato has been the textbook of scholars in the Western World, as the Dialogues of Zoroaster with Ahura Mazda constituted the Sacred Literature of the Wise Men of the Farther East. Other religious faiths were also permeated and leavened by the pure faith of the Avesta. The colonization of Judae by the authority of the Persian monarchs was distinctly set forth as inspired by the "God of Heaven" - Ahura Mazda. The Pharisees made a collection of Sacred Writings, the work of their sages and prophets, and the Essenes compiled another to be read and expounded in their secret assemblies. Angels and evil spirits became conspicuous in Tabbinic tradition. "The Jews derived all their knowledge

about the angels from the Persians during their captivity," Maimonides tells us. Doubtless, many of the Hebrew traditions and observances were from the same source. Herodotus has declared that no nation adopted foreign customs so readily as the Persians. To this versatility of disposition may be attributed many of the changes made in their worship. While Dareios and Xerxes were zealous adherents to the "pure faith" of Ahura Maxda, Artaxerxes Mnemon proclaimed Mithras and Anahid his divinities; the one the personified fountain of living spirit from who flowed the currents of life to the universe, and the other the chief of angels and the Director of the ever-active fructifying energies of nature. This new form of worship was carried into Asia Minor and flourished there for centuries as an arcane religion. After the conquest of Pontos and the Pirate empire of the Mediterranean by Pompey, it was introduced into the Roman metropolis. There, says the Rev. C.W. King, "it became so popular, as with the earlier-imported Serapis-worship, to have entirely usurped the place of the ancient Hellenic and Italian divinities. In fact," he further declares, "during the Second and Third centuries of the Empire, Serapis and Mithras may be said to have become the sole objects of worship even in the remote corners of the Roman world. It was the theology of Zoroaster in its origin, but greatly simplified, so as to assimilate it to the previously-existing systems of the West. Under this form it took the name of Mithras, who in the Zoroastrian creed is not the Supreme Being Ormuzd, but the chief of the subordinate powers. Mithras is the Zend title of the Sun, the peculiar domain of this spirit, and hence he was admitted by the Greeks as their former Phoebus and Hyperion. In the same character he identified with Dionysius and Liber, or Phanaces,* the sun-god of the Asiatics, and his Mysteries replaced the ancient Dionysia. How important the Mithraica had become in the Second century appears from the fact recorded by Lampridius that Commodus the Emperor condescended to be initiated into them. With their penances and tests of the courage of the candidate for admission, they have been maintained by a constant transition through the secret societies of the Middle Ages and Rosicrucians, down the modern faint reflex of the latter, the Free Masons." -----------* Dionysos or Bacchus was originally a Semitic or Cushite divinity. The name is compounded of dian or judge, and nisi, mankind. Nebuchadnezzer styled him "Samas dianisi." Pater Liber was the Roman Bacchus, whose festival occurred on the seventeenth day of March. ------------There seems to have been a great resemblance among the several sects and religions in the earlier centuries of the present era. The Apocalypse abounds with references which exhibit familiarity with the Mithraic rites. The letters to the seven angels offer rewards to those that overcame, like those given to successful candidates. The fiery dragon with seven heads and ten horns, or rays of light forming a halo around them, was a simulacrum of the seven-headed serpent of Akkad and Assyria which the Zoroastrian believers were destined to destroy. Augustin of Hippo quoted the assertion of the Mithraic initiators that their divinity "himself was Christian." The copper coins of Constantine bore the image and superscription of the Unconquered Sun, the comes or comrades in arms, and everybody knows that the twenty-fifth day of December was from time immemorial celebrated as the Birthday of Mithras. Chrysostom, speaking of the appointing of the

Christmas festival at the same period, explains the reason: "It was so fixed at Rome in order that while the heathen were busied at their profane ceremonies, the Christians might perform their holy rites undisturbed." Indeed, as Mr. King remarks, "there is very good reason to believe that, as in the East the worship of Serapis was at first combined with Christianity, and gradually merged into it with an entire change of name, not substance, carrying with it many of its ancient notions and rites; so, in the West, a similar influence was exerted by the Mithraic religion." In the year 381 a decree of the Emperor Theodosios I prohibited the further observance of the worship, and it was afterward denounced as sorcery and actual compact with Powers of Darkness. Yet it continued for many years among the paganis or country population. A melancholy interest hangs about the later history of the Mazdean religion. The fine gold became dim. The Magians were able to realize the ambition of the usurper, Gaumata, and make themselves the authorized expositors of the Zoroastrian doctrines; and when afterward the restoration took place under the Sassanide dynasty, they retained that distinction. Meanwhile the numerous Gnostic sects and creeds, abounding during the first centuries of the present era, are evidence of the influence that pervaded the atmosphere of philosophic thought. This grand religious system has been little known and studied in later periods. Its magnitude and influence have been underrated. It has survived the torch of Alexander and the scimitar of the Moslem. Millions upon millions have been put to death for their adherence to the "pure religion," yet wherever it survives it is manifest as the wisdom justified by her children. The leaven of truth which it carries has sufficed to preserve it from extinction, and it bids fair to continue for centuries. The moral virtues, truth, chastity, industry, and general beneficence which are found inculcated in the earliest fragments of the Avesta, and which were characteristic of the Persians of the time of Cyrus, are even now the peculiarities of this remarkable people. "No nation," says Miss Cobbe, "no nation deserves better that we should regard their religion with respect, and examine its sacred literature with interest than the 120,000 Parsis of India - the remnant of the once imperial race of Cyrus and Darius." The criticism has sometimes been made that there was little of a philosophic nature in Zoroastrian books. We are not required to be so over-nice in our distinctions. The Avesta is everywhere ethical, and like all ancient writings, essentially religious. All philosophy takes religious veneration for its starting-point. We are free, likewise, to define religion as Cicero did, to be a profounder reading of the truth. But it was anciently held to include the entire domain of knowledge. Even here the Avesta was not deficient. The twenty-one works treated of religion, morals, government, political economy, medicine, botany, astronomy, and other subjects. The students of Zoroastrian lore were therefore proficient scholars. Demokritos of Abdera, who was educated by Persians, and professed their religion, was distinguished as a physician and a philosopher. He became no less advanced in Egyptian learning in later years, which he endeavored to show was similar to the Wisdom of the East. Herakleitos denominated the elemental principle Fire, which, however, was a spiritual and intelligent essence, and not a gross corporeal flame. For it all things emanate and to it they return. This is the cardinal principle of fire-worship as inculcated by Zoroastrians. The light of Ahura Mazda is hidden under all that shines, says the hymn. Herakleitos also taught that the soul possesses the power to cognize the real truth, while

the senses only perceive that which is variable and particular. The living on earth he declared to be a dying from this life of this eternal world, and death is a returning thither. The doctrine of the Two Principles was also entertained; the former, the essential fire, positive, real and intellectual; the latter, cold, negative and a limitation of the other. Enough for us, however, that the ethics and philosophy of the Mazdean religion have been wholesome in their influence and a potent leaven to promote the fermentation of thought. Even to our own day we know and feel it. "So much is there in this old creed of Persia in harmony with our popular belief today," remarks Miss Cobbe, "that we inevitably learn to regard it with a sort of hereditary interest, as a step in the pedigree of thought much more direct in our mental ancestry than the actual faith of our Odin-worshiping ancestors according to the flesh." This conviction is founded on a firm groundwork. Zoroastrianism has mingled with the deepest thoughts of the centuries, purifying wherever it was present; the current from that fountain has flowed for thousands of years, fertilizing as it went. Everywhere, in whatever form it has appeared, it had always the same idea at the forefront - the overcoming of evil with good, the triumph of right over wrong.

(Metaphysical Magazine, April, 1901) ------------------------------

Intellect and Spirituality, The Stature of Man - Alexander Wilder Whatever sentiments may be entertained in regard to the psychic facts and phenomena incident to our present mode of life, it is generally agreed and understood that the nervous structure is the organism by which all sensation, intellection and volition, are carried into act. We become conscious at the surfaces and extremities of our bodies, of facts and things external to us; we recognize this consciousness, at the brain; the sensation becomes there a thought; this thought blends with our inherent likes and dislikes, and thus creates or evolves a volition; the volition operating in combination with our judgment or understanding, ultimates itself in some form of action. This being the case, it behooves us to consider wherein a man differs from a beast. You may excite an animal's attention by some appeal to his sensation and consciousness; he will recognize the sensation and immediately perform some action as a consequence. He will take food, resist attack, flee from peril, respond to a caress, and seek one, with promptitude apparently like that of a human being. The chances of one are like the fortunes of the other; they are similar in appetite, sensation and desire; similar fears, passion and propensities actuate them. The Hebrew writer, Koheleth seems to have very aptly, if not accurately, described it: "I said in my heart concerning the estate of the sons of men, that God might manifest them, and that they might see that they themselves are beasts. For that which befalleth the sons of men, befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast, for all is vanity. All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all

turn to dust again. Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?" This is a stern problem, requiring a careful solution. It is the riddle of the sphinx which she proposed to every one on penalty of death if it was not solved; and then brought on the successful Oedipus a fate more terrible than her own fearful doom. Common blunderers live and die like brutes; the inspired, the intuitive, those who know, are led, dragged and driven through a whole lifetime of anguish. Charles Darwin says: "The habit of scientific investigation makes a man cautious about accepting any proofs"; he adds, "As far as I am concerned I do not believe that any revelation has ever been made." Whatever therefore may be our belief in regard to revelation, whether in the Bible or some other sacred book, or to any individual in his own interior consciousness, we must pay no attention to it while exploring this field. Man is on trial in regard to his own essential manhood, and it cannot be decided by any circumstantial evidence. What may be to you as revelation from the supernal world, is not in consequence revelation or conclusive evidence to me. We want testimony which is proof alike to both. If we are going to make a psychological science which is of the slightest account, we must establish the fact of a psychical entity in advance. If there is none in man, which does not vary essentially from what is in the dog or horse; if the difference is not something more than generic, a matter of race, it is not worth our while to go any farther. There can be no actual responsibility, no real morality, no essential right and wrong, except there is in man a soul which is inherently a citizen and dweller in eternal reality. The thing which began yesterday and will perish tomorrow has no occasion for any morality except the law of the stronger, that right which has relation to strength alone and not to justice. I must appeal to the fact that man has a faculty and employs it, an ulterior consciousness, judgment and will, which no beast has. I admit a similarity of physical wants, appetites and propensities; but I take the position that the human being who lets his life and actions be directed by these wants, appetites and propensities, is not a beast, but only beastial, beast-like. The infant man cries, chirps and laughs, to express wants and emotions. We recognize what may be in his mind by the peculiar intonation of each sound. The bleat of the sheep, the low of the ox, the neigh of the horse, the bay or bark of the dog, the mew or other cry of the cat, the cluck and cackle of the barnyard fowl, may all be judged in a like manner. The chick knows when the old hen clucks to keep it in heart, when she calls it to rest, when she invites it to food, and warns it of the approaching hawk. According to the intonation of the cat's cry, we perceive a prayer for food, a summon to the kitten, or an invitation to a social visit. The infant is very similar in his cries to these animals. The adult, however, exceeds these limits. He not only makes these cries and other sounds, but he attaches to each articulation a meaning of its own. He employs his glottis, palate, tongue, teeth and lips to shape out a great variety of these articulations. The sounds of b, d and k, modified by s, h, r and l, have enabled him to build up a system of utterances, each with a sense peculiar to itself and distinct from the others. In Latin, this system of articulations so arranged is denominated lingua; in French, language, or translated into English, a tongue. Each of these articulations is called a word. By general understanding between human beings, each of these words is mutually understood to denote or represent thought. It is not necessary to have the physical object and action directly before you; the word which has been agreed upon to have that meaning

conveys the idea. In due time, not merely physical ideas but those of the mind and intellect are given form and become part of language. To this way, the sense of right, the whole moral idea, the religious concept, everything which the imagination has in its province, are rendered into words. Thus it is that man exhibits his superior nature and transcends everything of the beast-life. William von Humboldt has, therefore, very appropriately declared, "Man is elevated above the animals by the faculty of speech; but to have this faculty he must already be man." We will pursue this matter further. Not only has man created and evolved a complete language, by art - by a faculty that shows that he is not, at bottom, a brute - but he has carried the matter still farther. He has devised pictures, characters and combinations of characters, to represent each articulate sound, each word, each thought. He writes as well as talks, his ideas and thoughts may be traced on paper, bark, stone or other body, and exhibited to others. He can thus utter his wishes and opinions and transmit the utterances to others at a distance, and to human beings that have not yet come into existence on this earth. We thus have literature. Our literature is the further maturing of our speech; and prefigures admirably a power of exercising our will and consciousness at a distance, and into future time. Literature is the immortality of speech. Human invention has manifested itself in another field. We have perceived that man observes and reflects, in order to be able to write. He has added to this another acquirement. In some way, whether by observing the conflagration of the lightning, the results of spontaneous combustion, or the deflagration produced by striking of flint, or friction of wood, or other combustible, or, perhaps by divine inspiration itself, he has ascertained the existence of fire. Perhaps all these remarks are far fetched; for animals seem to know as much as that. An orang-outang, a dog or a cat, will quickly exhibit that intelligence. They will remain there till the fire goes down; never building one, or replenishing on that has been built. It requires a man for that. Man, therefore, exhibits his rank above the animal races, by the faculty of speech and the ability to build a fire. The agency of fire in human hands knows no limit. We are made masters of the earth. Every plant and every animal is circumscribed to a particular district, because the sign of the climate will permit it to go no farther. If man was subject to the same limitation, a little belt of the earth, not very far beyond the tropics, would comprise all of the earth that he could occupy. But the artificial summer which he can create in his place of abode, enables him to exceed these limits. He does not doubt his ability to travel to the North Pole, build a fire and a house there, and hang out his flag. The old Greeks tell us that Prometheus stole fire from the chariot or vahan of the Sun and gave it to human beings. The benefactor of mankind was a Titan, one of the older style of gods, the kind that the Greeks used to worship before the Hellenes came out of Thessaly and set up Zeus, or Jupiter, as the new god omnipotent, and a race of younger gods, the kind that we call classical. Hesiodos tells us that Prometheus stole the fire from Zeus himself, in a fennel-stalk. Zeus revenged himself like any old-fashioned god. He created women out of earth and water to make men all manner of trouble, "a mischief to inattentive man," and banished Prometheus to Kalchis, where he was chained to a pillar, and an eagle was set to devour his liver. Aeschylos has eloquently recited the story in his famous tragedy. He is chained there by strength and force, the brute instruments of Heaven, and there taunted by them for his great love to mankind: "You helped mankind; see, whether they can help you now!"

Daringly he protests in language worthy of a god. He vouchsafes no notice to the ignoble wretches whom the imperial tyrant has set there to torture and to worry him. He suffers sternly the fierce pain. "It behooves me," he said, "to bear patiently my destined fate. To complain or not to complain is alike unavailable." To the sympathising Chorus he explains his offense. Zeus had taken from men the love of fire and made them helpless savages; he had restored it. "I saved them from destruction" he declares, "for mercy to mankind I am deemed not worthy of mercy. I hid from men the foresight of their fate; I sent blind hope to inhabit their hearts; I gave them fire. The blazing gift shall give birth to various arts. I formed the mind of man; and through the cloud of barbarous ignorance diffused the beams of knowledge. They saw indeed, they heard; but what availed all this, mingled in wild confusion, like the imagery of dreams? They know not masonry, or building, but scooped out caves to dwell in. I instructed them to mark the stars, the rich train of marshalled numbers, and the meet array of letters, I sent them memory, and taught them, to yoke the steer, harness the horse, and to build and navigate the ship. I taught them to mix the balmy medicine of power to chase away disease and soften pain, I taught the various modes of prophecy and the smelting of metals." In short Prometheus taught "each useful art to man." Such are the laws which man has attained from the possession of fire. He has the power to acquire every art, to achieve everything possible beneath the blue vault of the sky. By aid of fire we convert into food many crude articles which otherwise the stomach would refuse to digest . With the increase of food and the practical moderation of the temperature, this earth is rendered capable of sustaining hundreds of millions of human beings, which would otherwise be impossible. Besides this, every art is rendered a practical achievement only by the agency of fire. The humble smith is perhaps looked down upon; our fathers looked up to him. He made the implements to cultivate the soil, and the weapons to defend the household. The power of every conqueror of countries, was only exerted by aid of the work of blacksmiths. When Porsena conquered Rome in the early days of the Republic, he made it dependent on Tuscany by depriving it of smiths and iron tools. The Bible tells us of a time when the Philistines of Phoenicia permitted "no smith in Israel." Then the people left their homes and sojourned in caves and holes of the ground; they walked not in highways, but skulked about in by-paths. Such has been every people's condition without the smith. Hence the man who wrought metal was in every country the noblest of the population, next after the priest. Art, science, everything that exalts us above the savage and distinguishes as from the brute, owe form, existence and every achievement to the use of fire. Chemistry is but the fire science. We are the servants, if not the worshipers, of fire. It is not easy to summarize our subject more effectively. The whole scope of human excellence, distinguishing man from animals, is shown to consist in the faculty of speech, the art of writing, and in knowing how to make a fire. We thus live, make ourselves comfortable, carry on sociability with neighbors, manufacture implements and machinery, devise arts and find out sciences, establish civil religions and educational institutions; like father Prometheus we, too, steal fire from heaven, we take the lightning, put it into harness, and send it hither and thither to carry our speech and thoughts, to light our streets, and who knows what more? Perhaps to warm our homes, heat our furnaces, propel our ships, locomotives and machinery.* "Canst thou," asks Jehovah from the typhoon of Job, "canst thou send lightnings, that they may go and say unto thee: 'Here we are?'" I would not be

irreverent, but it does seem to me that we are in the way to do that very thing. It looks like even going farther than that, like taking the very light itself, the magnetic ether, the actinic principle, and making that, too, our minister. I have heard sound which had been transmitted on a ray of light. I see good reason to believe that my speech and yours will be taken up by atmospheric radiations, as we utter it, carried somewhere into the indefinite space and held there by some medium till subsequent agencies enable it to be repeated anew, as by Edison phonograph, perhaps in some age or period hundreds or thousands of years hence. -----------* This was written by Doctor Wilder before electricity was harnessed for light, heat and power. Such speculations were, in those days said to be the idle dreams of visionaries. - Ed. (The Word) -----------What has been achieved and learned, all indicates as much. Perhaps we must wait till our unformulated science has been recognized and brought into everyday service. Mr. Matlock has suggested a name for it: "The Science of Human Character," explaining by it susceptibility to nature, the development and organization of impulse. We should need to penetrate into this matter very deeply, because all our dignity, our future, our very humanity, are concerned. I will not, however, follow up this topic now - we will drop down into the physical field, and receive as best we may its suggestions. Enough has been said, I think, to convince everyone that our superiority is manifest in the simplest matters of everyday life. Certainly, however, it does not consist in any particular superiority of bodily conformation. The animals which have descended from man - not man from any animal have, many of them, a higher rank in the zoological scale. The horse and elephant beat him on teeth. The cow and pig are better endowed in respect to legs. Others are far ahead in facial structure. The monkeys have more perfect hands, especially on the hinder legs. It is only when we come to the nervous structure, the psychic power, the faculties which pertain to interior intelligence, that the dignity of human nature is perceivable. We have no problems of human descent to solve. Our relations and kindred are those who are essentially of like nature with ourselves. The greater our completeness in the scale of being the more distinctly do we exhibit the character of our ancestry. It is not in the imperfection and rudimentary character of babes that our race and generation is most fully manifested. It is not true that when we show most completely and actively the powers and characteristics that the animals share with us that our true character and nature are best manifested. That period is when we have become men, mature and adult, and have forgotten these childish things. We do not measure wheat except as I here estimate man. When the minute, grassy blade comes out of the earth we do not pass judgment and rank the little plant with the herbage which the cattle crop, the herds' grass and timothy. Nor do we consider it the time to do it when the flinty straw shows itself and even exhibits a head. It is not yet perfect; it has not attained maturity or come to the full purpose and scope of its existence. We wait till the grass nature has been left in the background and we have the full grain in the ear. It then speaks for itself. When, after this analogy, man develops intellect and spirituality, not mere knowing of sciences but the

comprehension of the knowledge and life which transcends them, his real nature and purpose of existence are manifest; he is man. (The Word, vol. 12, no. 6, March, 1911) -----------------

Memory - Alexander Wilder, M.D. F.A.S. Few have a proper conception of memory, not only of its importance, but even of its nature. The common notion is superficial and incomplete. We generally think of it as a recalling to mind of what we have learned, or occurrences, and words which we have heard persons utter. If any of these have passed out of direct consciousness, so that we are not able to tell of it at the instant, it is said to be forgotten. But this is not satisfactory. We do not really forget. Our mental condition is not so simple as is often supposed. The mind is impressed by every object which engages attention; and the impression once made is never erased. It may be it is overlaid by other and deeper impressions, but they are only so many additions. They do not in any respect supersede or eradicate an impression which has already been made. It will pass from immediate consciousness, but under due conditions it is certain to manifest itself in full vividness. So we remember what happened yesterday, last week, last month, last year, in childhood. It is easy to recount examples of all this till the narration becomes tedious. The common mode of speech now-a-days is to refer all these operations and manifestations of memory to the brain. In a sense this is right enough, but there is necessity to carry the matter further. For the brain is not a simple structure of nerve-matter inside the skull, set to do all our intellectual work. We have both a brain on the right side and its counterpart on the left, bound together by a mass of white fibre; and despite their apparently similar character and functions, their offices are very distinct. I have surmised that there exists an analogy between them like that of the two sexes, a likeness yet diverse. I forbear expatiating upon the innumerable subdivisions, the convolutions, ganglia and probable variety of function. Enough that the brain is the organism that receives impressions and projects ideas. But the cerebellum should not be overlooked. It is an organism more essential to the vital economy. Every vertebrate animal is endowed with it, to a perfection which except in the human being, the cerebrum never attains. But the human cerebellum surpasses the same structure in the animal creation, in that it has a middle lobe which evidently has a distinct office. It is fairly to be presumed that it is employed to mature and complete the work of the cerebrum. The remainder of the neural organism, the spinal cord and its innumerable nerves, is devoted to sensation and the transmitting of will. The nerves of sensation receive impressions from the outer world, by seeing, hearing, smell, taste, feeling and subtler faculties. These they convey to their focal point within the cranium, the sensorium. Such impressions are passed to the cerebrum and duly cognized. They are

transformed into perceptions, and as such are projected as sounds, objects of sight, or whatever sensation may be incident. As these sensations cease to be conscious the impressions are taken up by the cerebellum. There they are held for indefinite periods, to be rendered back to external consciousness whenever called for. This is recollection. But I opine more. Many suggestions are made which require time for consideration. It is not possible, constituted as we are, for the peculiar functions of the cerebrum to dispose of them, and it has other employment as time goes on. The subjects in such cases, seem to pass out of mind, to be forgotten. But this is not the case. They are simply given over to the subconscious department, in other words, to the cerebellum. Here in silence they are matured, after which they are returned back to consciousness as matters that are decided. Sir Francis Galton makes much of this matter. He relied upon the subconscious activity for his own intellectual operations. Indeed we all do, only we are often too little heedful or cognizant of how the thing is done. A proposition is made to us. We lay it by to "think over." But this phrase means little. We do not often revolve these things in active consciousness. The "man behind the scenes," the memory and subconscious mind hold them fast and digest them into conclusions. In this way the real work is done. Perhaps this is one of the matters involved in the Biblical text: "He that believeth shall not make haste." While thus referring to the agency of the brain and other neural structures, let me be understood as regarding them as simply agents and not actors. But as we can know little of mind apart from organism, it is apt to become habitual to speak of the organism as being itself the mind. We receive impressions, think of them, compare them, reason about them, weave them into conclusions. All this is done consciously. Yet, as has been shown, the real assimilating of such things as constituents of our mental being, is something profounder than mere reasoning. The culture of the memory is a most important feature of education. The proficient pupil is the one that has a good memory. Doubtless, as we all notice, there is a difference of the power in individuals to recollect facts and incidents. Nevertheless where a deep impression is made upon the attention a matter is seldom forgotten. The careless habit of "skimming over," of reading cursorily, of giving little attention, is the cause of most cases of forgetfulness. Hence instructors ought to give their efforts to the development and cultivation of memory in their pupils, and to this end the faculty should be more cared for than what is learned. In memory our career is recorded, never to be erased. Nor will oblivion cover it. But the new may transcend the old, and a better knowing of ourselves, of life, and its requirements will serve to make all a source of utility and happiness. For even what is accounted evil and wrong has its use in the way of discipline and development. There is also a profounder memory which is hardly recognized. In some form there is a past, a former life, which has been well nigh forgotten and is generally overlooked, except it be by those whose senses have been vivified with a completer energy. It was taught by the philosopher Pythagoras and believed by those who succeeded as by those who lived before him, that there is a certain knowledge which seems to be innate in us. The ideas of justice, what is due from one to another - of immortality, the ever-abiding being, of beauty and symmetry, pertain to forms of being antecedent to the present life, and can be apprehended only by such as but lived in some mode prior to their entrance and birth into this world. These ideas are memories, and pertain to beings dwelling in the

region and conditions where they have their origin. Coming into the present life from the external world, and still sustaining relations with that world, the human soul brings these principles of right from that world as things recollected. This continuation of existence eternally, not to say sempiternally, appears to have been anciently a very general belief. It was held in Egypt, it is still cherished in India and China. In the New Testament are several references, intimating the same thing. It is predicted of John the Baptist that he shall go in the spirit and power of the prophet Elijah; and when Jesus is interrogated by his disciples, he responds that "Elias has already come," also that John was the Elias that was to come, of whom a former prophet had spoken. There were also predictions that when the Hebrew nation should be restored David would be their king. Again, when Jesus was passing by a man who had been blind from his birth, the disciples asked the cause of the misfortune: "Did this person sin, or his parents, that he was born blind?" Was it a karma, the effect of wrong-doing in a former term of life, or was it heredity, an inheritance from his ancestors? It is not quite pertinent to our purpose, however, to engage in argument upon this subject. We have, as we perceive, two forms of memory which pertains to the events and experiences of this present life, and the recollection which includes the principles, the exalted affections and the intuitive perceptions that we have derived from the Eternal Source. Let it not be thought that we have left that region to come to this. A department of our being is still there, so that what is in operation there is also perceptible with us. Hence our education must be twofold in order to be complete. The external life and thought should be made to develop the spiritual instinct in the common manifestations and experiences; and the divine quality should descend that it may permeate the whole being. Then memory, no more a mere receptacle of facts and opinions lacking vital force, will be the living principle of being, by which all thought, percept, and conviction will be included together in a firmly compacted unity. That which is above will indeed be as that which is below, and all things will be as though recorded in letters of living light. In this relation we realize the vision of the prophet, and the lion and the lamb in us will lie down together. Instead of disorder there will be harmony, instead of illusion then will be truth, and humanity then is at one with divinity. Memory will thus be in its true character, the mirror of what is good and true. (Metaphysical Magazine, vol. 19, no. 5, July, 1906) -----------------

The Phases of Love - Alexander Wilder What Love really is exceeds the power of defining. Our literature is overloaded with examples, both genuine and fictitious, and yet come short of completeness or even accuracy. They describe emotion, passion, and self-abnegation in profusion, but seldom indicate the deeper principle which involves the very life itself. Yet till some proper understanding is attained of the radical nature, there can only be misapprehension which

will be liable to lead to disorder. Superficial knowledge is satisfactory to sciolists only, but thinkers carry observation further toward the heart of things. The Standard Dictionary describes love as a strong complex emotion or feeling inspired by some thing, as a person or quality, causing one to appreciate, delight in, and crave the presence or possession of the object, and to please or promote the welfare of that object. This is a very fair presentation, so far as delineating is concerned. It is not easy to give a better. We are necessarily involved like the philosophical reasoners in the conditions of things, by which on the one hand there is absolute unity behind and prevailing all, while on the other there is exhibited a multifarious complexity which seems to exhibit many different principles as well as manifestations. It may not be an easy task, therefore, to show a relation between the one and the many, how all are permeated and inspired from a common source and tend upward again to interblending with that fountain from which they derived their being. "Every one," says Plato in the Phaedros, "every one chooses the object of his affections according to his character, and this he makes his god and fashions and adorns as a sort of image before which he is to fall down and worship." The complexity, therefore, we may assume, is not so much a quality of love itself as of the forms in which it is manifest in the innumerable experiences of life. The first unfolding of love is desire - the consciousness of a want. We notice this in its simplest form in the babe. We observe with admiration the eager regard of the young child for its mother or nurse, or for some one else who gives it delight in some way. Not a whit, however, does such affection extend beyond the child's own mental consciousness. There is no perception of any fact or principle except that all persons and objects existing around, are for its delight and entertainment exclusively. "Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child," says the Hebrew writer of proverbs; and certainty its mental and moral condition is close upon absolute selfishness. What is more, this is necessary. All that a babe knows consists of corporeal wants and the means by which these are satisfied. The innocence and simplicity which are imputed to children are due to having no thought or knowledge of how to do wrong to another. The chief duty of the child is to feed and so to become eventually fit for the conditions of life beyond the period of infancy. It must acquire ; such is the necessity, such is what nature dictates. We contemplate this on its other side, when we perceive it in the adult man or woman. Love, the altruistic principle of fraternal regard for others, is the true philosophic principle of justice, inculcated alike by Plato the sage and Paul the apostle. This must remain in the inner nature of the child like a bud in winter, apparently non-existent till the springtime of the after-life with its experiences brings it into development. "The rod of correction," stern discipline of active life drives foolishness or selfishness away. Selfish men, money-mad adventurers, are all of them cases of arrested development. When childhood merges into boyhood or girlhood, the bud is enlarging, and the blossom peeps forth from its envelope. The characteristics that made infancy pleasing now become objectionable and even repulsive. Young boys and girls are often ungrateful, and even wantonly cruel. Perhaps judicious training will correct or at last restrain many of these hateful manifestations, so as even to bring forth good manners, courtesy toward others, and possibly dispositions of kindness. But these characteristics are too apt to be superficial. Yet this is the proper time for education, not so much cramming with indigestible science, as bringing to view the inherent faculties and qualities of the individual.

Selfish considerations, however, are too generally uppermost, till higher sentiment shall extend to the foundations of the character, and permeate it throughout, leafing out in every direction. It is true that habit itself engenders attachments, as of parents and children, of brothers and sisters, and of playmates and associates. These may occasionally continue into later life. This love, however, if we are so to call it, which appears at this period of life is rather an instinct than a principle. It demands an equivalent for all that it gives, or it is liable to change into indifference, or even to actual hatred. It is like the love of a horse for a man, or of a dog for its master. If they are neglected they are likely to become estranged. So parents may lose the regard of their children, and the members of a family may become aliens to one another. Indeed this disintegration is now very common. Few of the glowing attachments between schoolmates and familiar associates but are blighted by neglect and selfishness, or outgrown as the character is more fully developed, or supplanted by stronger passions. Yet in them childish attachments, though of mingled character, there is some glamor of what is better. Sympathy and actual kindness of disposition appear among the meaner incentives and we may perceive that what has been regarded as depraved nature has within it a higher quality. Even the child will learn that in doing a service to a parent, a brother or sister, or some one else, there is a real delight and enjoyment. This, to be sure, may be based on selfish motive, but even then it also proceeds from something of the best that is in the individual. The stream does not rise higher than the fountain, yet it may be that the fountain itself is rising higher. Indeed, those of us who have lived long years beyond the period and peculiar impulses of childhood, are very sure to find, when we explore ourselves critically, that we have not altogether "put away the childish things" of self-seeking and covetous greed. These very often still exist, even in actions which were imagined to be good and generous, a taint of old selfishness, the desire to rule, a passion for praise, or even hope of personal advantage. Our very alms, perhaps, are money put at interest in the other world with the stipulation that they shall be repaid to us there with prodigious usury, cheating heaven itself. In the "Memoirs of Socrates" Xenophon represents the philosopher as suggesting the existence of two Goddesses of Love - two Venuses or Aphrodites. The one is heavenly, and inspires only the higher motives and superior individuals; the other a divinity or principle of common nature, that actuated every one. This illustration is apposite, indicating that our characters are composite, and that both these kinds of love may become mingled in us. Children being still immature in manners and not fully developed in character, exhibit this peculiarity, and at this period in their career they should be cared for the most assiduously; and it often seems to be the period when they are most neglected, and suffered to run wild. Yet it is the time when they become capable of perceiving the reason of things, why things must be done or tolerated, and the moral principle that underlies everything. Now, the foundation is laid for future health, stamina and character. The child who has been described by Shakspere as "creeping like a snail unwillingly to school" is the material of which the coming man or the coming woman is formed. The bud now becomes the blossom, and it is time to consider the fruitage. Most writers, ancient as well as modern, who descant upon Love, appear to recognize it as little else than attraction between the sexes, an instinct rather than a principle of our being. It is more correctly a force, the something that we are. With the

passing from adolescence into adult life, the individual blossoms out into a new mode of being. What may be described as consciousness of sex, and attraction to others, are now developed, and with this development comes an increased sensibility to emotion, and the perception of just relations toward others. It is at this period of life that individuals are most susceptible to religious influences, as these are occultly allied to the attractions of sex and the impulses of personal ambition. Teachers take advantage of this fact to recruit converts for the churches, and business men to supply their desks with young men of promise. It is the period also of apprenticeships to handicrafts. The many forms and manifestations which are now exhibited, are themes for diligent study and speculation. "Love is the life of man;" declares that profoundest of modern philosophers, Emanuel Swedenborg. It is certainly the most powerful motor and principle in human character. It arouses the whole nature into activity, gives directness to action, and brings inchoate sentiment into full bloom. The individual may have been reserved, selfcontained and even indifferent. He now becomes conscious under its influence that his condition is incomplete. There comes attraction, sometimes toward younger persons with the disposition to aid and protect them. This seems to have been a peculiarity in ancient times, but it is not yet altogether extinct. More commonly, however, it will be toward persons of different sex, and with it there comes a willingness, and even a passionateness to render services and courtesies. This often takes the form of self-abnegation, and almost of self-extinguishment; and indeed it may develop into that celestial quality, which is manifest by a seeking not of personal advantage, but what will best assure the happiness and well-being of its object. Unfortunately, however, the crude selfishness which characterizes the immature and undeveloped period of life, clings to us more or less, even in the extremest devotedness. In innumerable cases the predominating quality seems to be wholly personal. This is the fact with savages, and, indeed, with all who act as though imagining that all things are for them preeminently. "There are two principles in us," Plato pertinently remarks; "the one is a desire for pleasure, the other an acquired sentiment which aims at supreme excellence. Sometimes the two are in harmony, and sometimes they are at war, and then one or the other gets the upper hand. What is generally called 'the mighty force of love' is irrational desire which has overcome the tendency toward the right and is led toward the pleasures of beauty and impelled by kindred attractions toward physical and corporeal excellence." In such case, he remarks, jealousy glows forth lest the beloved object should excel the lover in personal qualities, or be admired and sought by others. In attachments of this kind, he declares, then is no genuine good will, but only an appetite requiring to be sated, as when wolves love a lamb. There is much declaiming, nevertheless, that is really unwarranted, about the low nature of the attraction between the sexes. This attraction is but the operation of a law and principle that are as universal as being itself. There is in all existing things a property known as polarity. The electric phenomena exhibit this peculiarity in the twofold relationship which we perceive to be fixed in the magnet. The affinities of chemistry are simply manifestations of this polarity, and intelligent observation discloses the same thing in the innumerable forms of plant-life. We find something of analogous character in animals, in their friendships and alliances, and recognize it as instinct. A like principle inspires friendship between man and man, and induces affection between individuals of

different sex, often stronger than the lust for wealth, the love of family, or even the love of life itself. Owing, perhaps, to the instinctive characteristics of such attachments, it is frequently a practice and habit to think and speak of them as gross, sensual, and even as low and degrading; and, indeed, if they are considered only on the external side, they may very justly be regarded in that light. This human being, our own self, speaking collectively, who has been described as "little lower than angels," or little less than Divinity, is capable of debasement in this matter that would put any animal to shame. And of the best of us, the simile holds good, that however high we may exalt our heads toward the sky, our feet still rest upon the earth. Yet this attraction of sex, however high or however low it may be, constitutes the foundation of all our social systems. The relations of the connubial pair establish the home, and from them is produced the parental affection which leads in human beings, as in many of the animal races, to the guarding of the household. The gregarious instinct pushes these relations farther, and creates the neighborhood, the commune, and country. In these developments of the social relation, human beings excel the entire animal kingdom. They make for themselves institutions, and bring into existence the arts and innumerable forms of science. Beginning with the intelligence which transcends that of every animal, the skill to build fires and construct language in its various intricacies, they exercise the imagination to the farthest extent of inventive ability. This faculty having begun with the devising of simple implements and utensils for the uses of life, is now carrying its plans into the larger fields of activity, where it may meet the requirements of convenience, taste, and even of inquisitive curiosity. All these achievements, so often the subject of boasting, owe their inception, their value and usefulness, to the peculiar attraction between man and woman. Thus not only does the whole social organism owe its existence to that attraction, but we are indebted to it for the arts and culture which we extol as civilization - a term which, by its original etymology, denotes the mode of living together. It is a maxim imputed to the apostle that "he that loveth his wife loveth himself." Certainly by that relation man is more genuinely a human being, a component part of the community, a "living stone" in the social fabric. He is thus made more capable of living out the highest principle of life, charity, the loving of the neighbor as one's own self. It is not to be supposed, however, that even this is the whole of the matter. Our existence is not included entirely in personal, domestic and social relations, however high they may carry us. It is a training-school to higher ends. We go by steps from lower to higher, and may not afterward go back and take up again with what suited us before but has now been outgrown. It is well enough that in every stage of experience and development, we should live and act according to its conditions. We contemplated an ideal excellence in them all, which made the attaining of purposes desirable, even when the conceptions were materialistic and commonplace. We often imagine such excellence to exist in children, in friends, in those whom we admire and for whom we entertain affection. Nevertheless, there are defects and even blemishes in every one, and while we may supplement and correct one another in a great degree as parts of the grand collective Humanity, we cherish the ideal of an essence, a principle beyond all these objects, perfect in its excellence. Real love is absolutely the love and desire of such excellence. It sees with the faculty of mental sight; it sees not the image of an object that it may contemplate

aglow with passionate affection, but perceives the reality itself, the highest fruition of which we can become capable. "I am the All that was, that is and that will be, and no mortal has unveiled me." (Metaphysical Magazine, vol. 19, no. 1, March, 1906) ------------------

PHILOSOPHIC MORALITY by Professor Alexander Wilder, M.D. IN the Platonic Dialogue on true Sanctity, entitled "Euthyphron'' the concept is brought into vivid relief, that virtue or holiness must be intrinsic and in conformity with a just principle. None are superior to it or beyond in this world or any other. Even the partisan gods of Olympus, some arrayed on one side and some in opposition, must abide that test. It would not do, therefore, to set forth that as holy which was pleasing to them, when there were two rival factions. They must love it because it is intrinsically holy, but it is not holy because they love it. This distinction will apply equally well to some modern instances. There are those who approve any act if some individual to whom they give allegiance shall do it, even though objectionable in itself. But goodness is above every god, leader, or favorite person, and belongs solely to the Absolute One. Religious worship must be subjected to the same criterion. If it is of advantage to the Divinity, and we are to derive benefit from it as an equivalent, it is a matter of traffic so much service and so much payment. It may not be doubted that there is a certain utility in worship, but it is not after this manner. True worship is a venerating of the right. There can be nothing really learned, nothing really known of the superior truth, except the knowledge is reverently sought and entertained. There is no better way to excellence, the great teacher of the Akademeia affirms, than to endeavor to be good, rather than to seem so. In this consists the whole of genuine ethics. Morality is the sway of a superior aim. Everything which is founded on appearances, which is apprehended only by observation and sensuous perception, is transient and temporary; and it must wane and perish when the cause which gave it existence shall cease to afford it life and vigor. But when we seek to do that which is right we are reaching forward, as with antenae toward the enduring, the permanent, the eversubsisting. The secret of the moral sense and feeling is the presentiment of eternity. Most appropriate, therefore, was the maxim of Kant: "Act always so that the immediate motive of thy will may become a universal rule for all intelligent beings." The supreme purpose of our life in this world and condition of existence, is discipline. Every experience that we undergo, every event that occurs, has direct relation to that end. In this matter, likewise, each individual must minister to himself. We have, each of us, our own lesson to learn, and cannot derive much instruction, or even benefit from what another has done or suffered. It is hardly more befitting to adopt for ourselves the experience of others than it would be to wear their clothes. The ethics which should govern our action will not be found set forth in a code. Good men, says Emerson, will not obey the laws too well. Indeed, nothing tends more to bring confusion and death into arts and morals, than

this blind imposing upon one period or individual soul, the experience of another person or former age. We may, perhaps, do very well with general notions, but certainly not with specific personal conclusions. The snail that entered the shell of the oyster found it a wretched dwelling, though it possessed a precious pearl; and the swallow gathering food for the winter after the example of the provident ant was the reverse of wise. The right-thinking person will be the law for himself. Our varied experiences have for their end the developing of this condition in us. The ancient sages taught accordingly that manners or ethics are certain qualities or principles which long habit and practice have impressed upon what they denominate the sensuous and irrational part of the mental nature. Moral virtue does not consist in the uprooting or suppressing of the passions and affections. This is not possible or even desirable. Indeed if they should really be rooted up from our being, the understanding itself would lose its vigor, become torpid, and perhaps even perish outright. It is their province, like that of the fire in the furnace, to impart energy to the whole mental machinery. Meanwhile the understanding takes note, and acting by the inspiration of the superior intellect, directs how that energy shall be employed. Human beings act according to their impulses, and the true morality consists in the bringing of these into good order and the disposing of them to laudable purposes. Casuists have affirmed that our first sense of duty was derived from the conception of what is due to ourselves. This is instinctive in every living being. Even the ethics of the New Testament are founded upon this precept: "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," it is likewise declared that "he that loves another has fulfilled all law." We are able to define what is just to others by our apperception of what is right for ourselves. These premises, it will be apprehended, will establish selfishness as the measure of moral virtue, and even as its basis. This is by no means so unreasonable as it may seem. Selfishness in its proper place and function is necessary and orderly. It is the first of our natural propensities. The babe that we admire and often praise as the emblem of innocence, is hardly less than absolutely selfish. It regards everything around it as its own by right, and every person as its servant. It knows no higher motive than its own enjoyment. By no art of reasoning can we show this to be immoral. It is not necessary for any one to plead that it is right, because the child was born so. We can perceive it easily enough by considering it intelligently. The highest good that a person can accomplish is to be measured by the highest usefulness of which he is capable. In the case of the babe, its utility, so far as others are concerned, is only possible and in prospect. All that it can perform well is summed up in eating and growing. This is really the state which is usually denominated "selfish" and yet we perceive that it is necessary to the ulterior purpose of becoming useful. Perhaps we ought to give a philosophic definition to evil itself. We may have been too prone to restrict our concepts of the operations of the universe to the limits of our own backyard. What seems like an infringing of order in our brief vision may be a perfect harmony in the purview of the higher wisdom. In the objectifying of the world of nature as the work or projected outcome from the Divine, it must of necessity be distinct, imperfect, limited and inferior. We apprehend this to be true of every created being. If it could be otherwise, then mankind and all the universe would be, not simply divine in origin and relative quality, but they would also be very God, and coordinate Deity.

Hence, therefore, imperfection and evil are unavoidable in all derived existence. Yet they are full of utility. They certainly enable us to obtain the necessary experience and discipline for becoming more worthy. In this way they are beneficial, and a part of the Divine purpose. The child that never stumbled never learned to walk. The errors of the man of business are his monitors to direct him in the way of prosperity. Our own sins and misdoings are essential in an analogous way to our correction and future good conduct. The individual, however, who chooses to continue in these faults and evil conditions, thereby thwarts their beneficial objects. His shortcomings become turpitude. All such, turning their back to the Right, will be certain to "eat the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices." The sense of individual right which is commonly designated as selfish, will be found capable of exaltation and expansion till it shall attain the rank and dimension of the widest benevolence. From the consciousness of what is due or belonging to ourselves proceeds the intelligent apprehending of what is proper and right for another. The child, when he comes into contact with playmates will soon learn that every one of them has personal rights with which others may not interfere. It may be only an imperfect conception, nevertheless it is a discipline and will exalt his view of things above the altitude of unmixed selfishness. When in riper years the attraction of sex is superadded, the field and opportunity are afforded for completer and nobler development. It may be objected that the individual too generally aspires to possess the object of regard without due consideration of the wishes and well being of the other. In this view, the new emotion will be but a new form of the radical selfish impulse. Indeed, it is not possible or even desirable that the earlier nature should be superseded. However high the head may reach toward the sky, the feet of necessity must rest upon the earth. Even the eagle must come down from its loftiest flights to solace its wants. The noblest human soul has like need of earthly repose and aliment, without which it will cease its aspirations to the higher life and thought. Eros, the ancient sages affirm, drew forth the divine order from chaos. The attraction of the sexes inspires a desire of pleasing, which is in itself a tendency toward self-abnegation. In due time the relations of household, neighborhood and society proceed from this root and perform their office of extending individual aims to universal ends. Selfishness must then be relegated to the background, or it will become manifested as a monster of arrested growth and deformity. In its primary office as impelling us to maintain ourselves in normal health it is permissible, and in the helpless and immature it is entirely laudable. But the person of adult years who shall remain in this rudimentary moral condition, whether living in a wilderness or among the most cultured, is for all that, only a savage. Civilization in its genuine sense, is the art of living together; and it is vitally dependent upon the just regard of every individual for the rights of the others. Whoever promulgates and lives by the maxim that "everyone must shift for himself," has not yet passed beyond the confines of uncivilized life. However rich, cultured or scholarly, he has yet to learn the simple alphabet of morality. Perhaps we shall find the Pauline ethics, as set forth in the New Testament, our best exposition of moral virtue. It is an indispensable condition of a morality that is to be efficient, says Jacobi, that one shall believe in a higher order of things of which the common and visible is an heterogeneous part that must assimilate itself to the higher: both to constitute but a single realm. Paul has declared all superior virtue to consist in charity, or

paternal love for the neighbor, and utterly ignores self-seeking. "No one of us lives for himself," he declares; "and no one dies for himself, but does so for God." Writing to his Corinthian disciples, he extols the various spiritual attainments, and then having included them in one summary, he avers that charity infinitely surpasses them all. He then depicts in glowing terms its superior quality: "It is forbearing, it is gentle; It is never jealous, it never boasts, It is not swelling with pride, It acts not indecorously, It seeks not wealth for itself, It is not embittered, nor imputes ill motive, It has no delight in wrong-doing, But rejoices in the truth." Thus with true philosophic ken, he mentions the various spiritual endowments as incident to the lower grades of development, and cast into the dark by charity. "When I was a babe," he says, "I prattled, thought and reasoned as one; but when I became man, I set the things of babyhood aside." Whoever seeks the general good, the best interests of others, with all his heart, making all advantage to himself a subordinate matter, has passed the term of childhood, and is adult man in full measure and development. It will he perceived that philosophic morality is not a creature of codes, books or teachers. It is always inseparable from personal freedom. It is character and substantial worth as distinguished from factitious reputation and artificial propriety of conduct. The person who keeps all the precepts of the law is not complete till he yields himself and his great possessions to his brethren. The cross of the life eternal may not be taken and borne in the hand while one grasps eagerly the sublunary good. We thus trace the moral quality in our nature from its incipient manifestation as a duty which we owe, to its culmination as a principle by which we are to live. It fades from view as a system enforced by rules and maxims, from being lost in the greater light of its apotheosis as an emanation from a diviner source. We are taught by our experience of results to shun evil and wrong-doing as certain to involve us in peril; and now the higher illumination reveals them as a turning aside from the right way, and sinning against the Divine. Our highest duty is to perfect ourselves in every department of our nature by the living of a perfect life - or as Plato expresses it, becoming like God as far as this is possible - holy, just and wise. Such is the aim of all philosophy, and it is attained by whomever in earnestness and sincerity pursues the way of justice and fraternal charity. (Universal Brotherhood, Dec., 1897) ---------------

Philosophy Essential to Progress - Alexander Wilder

Consciousness of the infinite God, of the immortal life, of the Eternal Right. It is an instinct, the most energetic principle of our nature to look always forward and upward to the True and the Good. The "descent of man" from the superior life is necessarily followed by the impulse to return thither. When we speak of progress we always mean a going forward toward perfection, an improvement of condition, a cultivation of the mind, manner and character to a higher point of attainment. No one is bad and wicked of his own full will and accord, nor does any human bring seriously and deliberately intend to remain always bad and wicked, except it be some prompting of despair. He always contemplates some period when he will be able to do better and become more deserving. Thus the sentiment of optimism, that everything is ordered for the highest good and for the best result for every individual, is grounded in our nature and is an inseparable constituent of our very existence. It is the outgrowth of the consciousness of the infinite Good, the immortal life and eternal Right which is innate in every one. The career of every soul is toward goodness as the center and home of the spirit. The province of philosophy, therefore, comprises the whole of life, its essential principle, its scope and activity. It comprehends the human being as he is, with direct reference to what he should become. The divine motive, as it has been made manifest in the universe, and in every individual consciousness, is to bring each to the apperception of the Good and the True. What the ancients denominated Wisdom was more than a mere knowing of facts that might be learned by rote and stored away in the memory. It included, likewise, the knowledge that must be evolved from the remembrances that abide in the superior soul, that knowledge of goodness which is equivalent to its possession. Philosophy is, therefore, the love and pursuit of inherent goodness and truth. As summarized by Butler with his usual emphasis: "Philosophy is the love of Perfect Wisdom; Perfect Wisdom and Perfect Goodness are identical; the Perfect Good is God; philosophy is the Love of God." Thus we see that the relations of philosophy are always to the Real, the Eternal and Permanent, rather than to the pursuit of phenomenal knowledge and changeable notions so frequently ranked as scientific. It is a mental and moral discipline for the purification and exaltation of the soul. The day that Sokrates drank the poison his friends having come to visit him for the last time, we are told that he entered into a discourse with them in regard to the soul and its conditions, the life beyond the present, and the office of philosophy. There were two men there from Thebes, Kebes and Simmias, who were spending a season at Athens in order to converse with him, and to these he is represented as addressing many of his remarks. "Bid Evenos farewell for me," said he; "and if he is wise, that he follow me as soon as he can." On their demurring at this, he remarked, "Perhaps, indeed, he will not commit violence on himself; for that, they say, will not be allowable." "What do you mean?" demanded Kebes. "You say that it is not lawful to commit violence on one's self, yet that a philosopher should be willing to follow one who is dying?" Then he added, "I have heard Philolaos* and others say that it was not right to do this, but I never heard anything clear upon the subject from any of them." -------------

* Philolaos was a native of Krotona, living at Thebes. Kebes and Simmias were his disciples. He sold Plato the writings of Pythagoras, disregarding his obligation to keep secret the esoteric doctrines of his sect. He taught that the cosmic universe had a fiery mass at the centre, around which revolved ten celestial spheres, of which the sun was one and the moon another, with eight planets. ------------Sokrates then explained to him that divine beings take care of us, and that we are their wards. A person, therefore, ought not to kill himself before his divine guardian laid such a necessity upon him. He then declared his confidence that all was well. "I entertains good hope," he said, "that something awaits those who die, and that it will be far better for the good than for the evil." He then set forth at length the grounds for his believing, but remarked that they who had rightly applied themselves to philosophy seemed to have left others ignorant that they were aiming at nothing else than to die and be dead. It may seem paradoxic to define the aim of philosophy in this way, when we recall to mind that it has been more generally regarded as the genuine preparation for living. We need, however, find no discrepancy in the matter: for what we denominate living and dying are in the same bundle. The philosopher explains carefully why he takes his point of view, "Every pleasure and pain," he declares, "has a nail, so to speak, by which it nails the soul to the body, fastens it there, and causes it to become corporeal - deeming those things to be true which the body, through its senses, represents as being so. In consequence of forming its opinions and delighting in the same things with the body, it must depart polluted by the body, and consequently deprived of all association with that which is divine and pure and uniform." Owing to this condition of enslavement to the passions, to the physical senses and the external life, the soul is buried away from the true mode of living, and so is rendered to be like the body, delighting in the same things, led by the same impulses and nourished from the same source. Even when death rends asunder the alliance, it is but a formal separation, and there will be a constant endeavor to find a way back into this earth-life and to participate in its ignoble pursuits and ambitions. Indeed, we did not come into this world by being born, and we do not really leave it by dying. The soul itself must be separated from the sensuous life and become at one with the higher life, to escape impurity and pollution. Hence the philosopher, the one seeking after wisdom, frees his soul as much as he can from a life that is in common with the corporeal nature; although it may appear to the generality of men that he who takes no pleasure in such things does not deserve to live, and that he who does not care for such pleasures is in a condition very like to death itself. The things which we apprehend by the senses, those objects outside of us, such as human beings, animals, material wealth, all change, grow old and decay. But thought never alters in any such way; love and the pure reason are permanent. The soul inspires its own activity, and is therefore immortal, and wherever it may be, it brings life with it. Coming into the realm of nature from the eternal world, it creates for itself a corporeal structure, which continues for a time, and then perishes; but the soul itself does not perish with it. For this reason, being itself the real entity, it requires the chief care, both in this life and always. If death was a liberation from everything, those who are wicked would find it a great gain, because all their vices would be sloughed off with the body; but as the soul,

the real selfhood, retains with it whatever discipline and education it has received while with the body, death makes no change in this respect. Philosophy, therefore, relates to the true mode of living, by which the soul shall become isolated, and as far as may be, insulated, from the dominion of the corporeal life, and be a denizen of the everlasting abode on high. In plainer speech, it means the love and pursuing of Wisdom; and by Wisdom is signified the knowledge and understanding, or rather the perception and conception of the causes, interior principles and groundwork of things. "It is absolutely essential," Aristotle declares, "that the complete man shall constantly contemplate the things which are true, and be the doer of those which art suitable." Zeno, the Stoic, further explained that philosophy is the exercise of virtue, and that virtue constitutes the technic or way of becoming skilled in the knowledge of real truth. "If any one desires to do the will of God," says Jesus, "he will know whether the doctrine is from him." Much has been uttered in later years of a Harmonial Philosophy. It assumed a place in the field of thought and activity which was by no means unworthy of candid as well as critical attention. It may be interesting to go back to the Greek language where the terns harmonia was first used, in order that we may find what is the true meaning. It would sound queerly to our ears to hear the word in the sense in which old Euripides used it - "the stubborn harmonia or disposition of women."* It certainly did not mean a negative, goodnatured accord of sentiment, of a forcible-feeble quality, from which positive, or decided opinion had been politely excluded. -----------* Hippolytos, 162 -----------The idea denoted by the term, is that of a framework, an apparatus or mechanism, consisting of many parts arranged together in perfect symmetry - hence perfectness or completeness as a whole, a being suitable and worthy. The root-word ar has numerous offshoots, as well as kindred in other older dialects. It means, to join or fit together, to go, to love. Hence it is close to everything in the history of human activity. At the Oracle of Delphi, love was named arma, as being the principle that mingled and united all. The wellbuilt ship, the human body, the organization of society, and the cosmic universe, each bore the designation of an harmonia as being "fitly joined together." The articulation of a limb was also so designated. The arm was called an harmonia; so, too, art, skill, the adapting of means to an end, the technic or specific mode of a pursuit, worship, or avocation. Hence it includes all of man in action and history - the Northmen's mystic tree, Yggdrasil, with its every leaf a tale, every fibre an act, every bough the history of a people - the Past, Present and Future - rooted in the world beyond and extending through Time - "the infinite conjugation of the verb 'to do.'" * ----------* Carlyle -----------

In due time the poets, myth-makers and compilers of religious stories took up the theme and idealized it. The god of action was named Ares, the goddess of love and homelife was Ar-ma, and Harmonia, the organizer of society, was represented as their daughter. This parentage was not ineptly arranged. Harmonia, it was further fabled, became the wife of Kadmos,* - the Before, the Ancient, the Eastern One, who had come from Phoenicia in quest of his sister Europa, the Western** who had been carried away beyond the sea. He never found her, probably because she appeared to recede as he endeavored to approach nearer. Then he appeared in another character, as the builder of a hundred cities, the establisher of the Kabeirian Rites, and the bringer of the alphabet and Oriental civilization into Greece. ----------* Kadmos was reported to be the son of Agenor, the Archaic. The classic named Oken, from which comes Okeanos or Ocean, is another form of this name. Hermes was a name of Kadmos, and Harmonia is a word of the same meaning and etymology. ** From Eret, the west; where comes also the name Erebos, the world of the dead, and Arabia, Western Land. ----------Very curious are these myths. While Kadmos was represented as the introducer of art, Harmonia, his wife, was the patroness of liberal knowledge. One writer affirms that she wrote the first books that were ever composed, thus virtually making her identical with Hermes himself. Nevertheless, the myths did not halt badly, for Hermes was the same as Kadmos, and was worshiped in the Samothrakian Mystic Rites together with his immortal consort - she as the Divine Mother and he as the Martyr-god. The whole system of the ancient arcane religion centered there. Indeed, looking clearly through the table we find it to imply that Perfect Order exists through the entire universe, so that the infinitude of stars perform their everlasting rounds without cessation - not a clash or any aberration. This is the harmony of the spheres which Pythagorean philosophers inculcated long ages before Copernicus and Johann Keppler. Every arrangement of things, therefore, which moves and operates in accord with a single central directing principle, is a harmony. The word means just that - an Order, a universe, a whirl or world moving with reference to a central axis. The fitness of part for part, of each constituent for alliance with its fellows, the common relation to the One, is the idea behind the whole. This is the real philosophy, the Science of Wisdom and absolute truth, the Sublime Knowledge. It relates to the energies and potencies of the whole universe - not merely to the phenomena that we observe around us, but to the laws which they everywhere manifest, and to the supreme omnific Will and Intelligence from which every law originates and in which it has its being. Passing from the macrocosm to the microcosm, from the great world to the small, it includes within its purview everything that relates to human beings, to their existence and welfare. It is the Metaphysic which embraces all mental and psychologic knowledge, the Science which unites in itself all sciences, the Technic which comprehends and directs all laudable action to the great Divine End - not the greatest good of the greatest number, but the perfect good of every individual.

To be the efficient factor in human progress, it can be no other - no less. We have an infinitude of temporizing. Our politics are but temporizing expedients at the best, and not even that when taken at their worst. The various projects for the bettering of affairs too generally come short. We seek to improve the condition of the poor, when really our endeavor ought to contemplate to have none poor. We maintain charities and reformatories, whereas, we should employ our efforts to obviate wrong-doing, rather than to deal with and modify its effects. We educate the blind, the deaf and dumb, and are trying to extend instruction to the feeble-minded, all of which are commendable undertakings; but the fact is not reflected upon or harshly considered, that the very birth of such individuals is a greater blotch on our civilization than was the stain of blood upon the hand of Lady Macbeth. It is becoming common to speak of certain of the population as being the criminal classes; yet those who are thus set down as vicious and guilty are sometimes the more virtuous intrinsically, but without the veneering of hypocrisy to disguise them. It would be wholesome to take a view occasionally of things as they are, even though the spectacle should have little in it to gratify us. It was said in the myth that Harmonia was the daughter of Ares and Aphrodite - one the god of action, strife and rugged enterprise, and the other the mother of household love and the arts of peace. There is abundance of deep meaning behind this. These two are counterparts of opposite nature and polarity. The combining of them is the establishing of society. "The frame and constitution of this world are made up of contrary forces," says Herakleitos. To be harmonic is to take the antagonisms, the conflicting motives and interests, and the diverse characters, and place them in their legitimate field. In this way they chime in together - they combine with and regulate one another. Harmonia, or Society, begins with the household and the mothers, and is extended afterward, as well as protected by the fathers, through whom families and classes are federated into neighborhoods and nations. He, therefore, who regards contrasts and dissimilars as imperfections, and antagonisms as essentially wrong, is short-sighted and superficial as well as profoundly ignorant. The characteristics of the two sexes have been made the theme of much criticism and harsh description, as though their very existence was some mistake of the Creator. Yet they are in every way the perfect demonstration of the operation of the harmonic principle. The two are dissimilar in their emotions, modes of thinking and methods of action. Instinctively and habitually they contemplate facts, customs, ideas and individuals as from an opposing point of view. They are not greatly unlike the two warriors contending over the shield, that it was of silver or gold, according as each had looked upon it. God made women conservative, with the virtues and deficiencies incident in such a constitution . They adhere to established conditions of society, and are averse to disturbing ideas, forces and elements, or indeed to change of any kind except as they perceive an overruling necessity, or perhaps some permanent utility. They throng the churches and temples of the old worships, and are generally unwilling to accept any religious innovation. They represent whatever is stable and permanent. In all discourse and reasoning they are tenacious of exceptions and particulars, seeming to be pained by, or to be intolerant of generalizations. We may note these peculiarities in men that are womanish in characteristics. The populations of India and China appear to be exemplars; they dress, labor, build houses and manage affairs very much as their ancestors did

hundreds and even thousands of years ago. To reverence that which was ancient was alike the doctrine of Manu and Konfucius. The male nature is the reverse of all this. Men are aggressive, restless, eager for change, reaching for the new. They invent and discover, construct theories and philosophy, and even dream of the establishing of a scientific scheme which shall include all knowledge, higher and lower, but without a dogma or metaphysic. This is because they generalize rather than analyze, and are instinctively desirous to bring the whole universe to their notion and comprehension. They furnish the radicals, who, in their zeal for improving things are eager to tear our houses down about our ears, intolerant of whatever can be found fault with, and often not thoughtful whether their reckless destructiveness may not do more harm than good. The apostles of religion are generally men; the word apostle is masculine. Yet it is the proper combining of these two opposite polarities of character, these apparent antagonisms, that constitutes marriage and so creates the substructure of human society. These two contrarieties of disposition - the one to put forth aspiration and endeavor, the other to retain and preserve - make the most perfect arrangement by their blending. It is sheer imbecility and want of sense to rail against either men or women because of their respective moral or mental idiosyncracies; and they who do it only show that they do not see beyond their own noses. For there is no vice, no evil quality, no sinful tendency inherent in the nature of human beings. The isolating, insulating, misuse, misplacing, misdirecting, constitute the real ground of offense. Every quality in man or woman is a virtue, and will justify itself as such in its proper field of activity. Nevertheless, it would be a foolish endeavor to seek to reconcile these diverse characteristics in order to render them harmonious, as that term is usually understood to mean. This would involve a paring off of prominent peculiarities, a taming down of the energies, a subduing, if not an absolute annulling of the will, and an eliminating of every trait that constitutes decided qualities. One of Dickens' characters was a female disciplinarian who used to insist that a young woman should have no opinion whatever. This would be but a diluting, a moral enfeebling, a milk-and-water way of being proper. Virtues which are purely negative, which exist because the individuals have been kept out of the way of conflict, opportunity and temptation, do not amount to much. The man or woman who is good because of not having physical life or mental energy sufficient to realize a hearty impulse to be naughty, is of minor account. Our universe was not created in such a fashion. God never pasted mud and dough together when be set about to make continents. He employed volcanic seething, with deep, thundering earth-fire, and so welded everything. The harmonic idea must be creative on that very principle. To be sure there will be eruptions now and then, but the general drifting will be toward equilibrium and the development of a more perfect order. The mere seekers of harmony try hard to make the best of things as they are, avoiding all confusion, uproar and radical overturning. But the true concept is not so peaceable. There is often to be an uprooting and shaking-up of things, an effervescing and exploding as of chemicals in a vessel; individuals seeming to be and do what they ought not. But such ferments and commotions are part of the Great Work. In regard to the actual progress of the human race there have been some curious notions and speculations. It has been insisted that human beings originally were only

savages hardly superior to or to be distinguished from so many apes. Then follows the proposition that they have been becoming civilized all the while since that period, by the perishing of the weaklings and only the survival of the stronger. These are distinguished accordingly as being the fittest. By this logic wolves and tigers would seem to be nobler than sheep, and thistles than corn. The way from savagery to high civilization would thus be indicated as a straight line, beginning no one knows where, and extending no one can tell whither. This unknowing, which is sometimes named and inculcated as Science or Knowing, seems to be the result of the inductive method of reasoning founded on external observation. The cosmos, nevertheless, has no straight lines. It is a universe of circles, the many careering round their centers. There is apparently advance, then going backward, then forward again - all the while a circle upon a circle. Like a huge serpent it goes onward in an endless succession of coils. It is the form of motion typified by the thread of a screw the spiral. Thus the cosmos is as a vast whirlpool, every circle in it returning upon itself unceasingly. Whirl upon whirl, the going forward often seeming to be a going backward, as nature and her forces from the outer side are ever concentrating into soul itself by these countless revolutions. All created matter tends to the spiral. Motion is spiral; the archer feathers his arrow, and the gun-maker bores the tube of the gun in order that the missile may be propelled in a spiral course. The children of this world, thus arise in their generation, know that this is the way to make sure of the most force. The Engineer of this universe, making force the basis of his operation, employs the spiral in every action and every evolution. The parts of the body take position with reference to centers of motion, and thus the unborn infant is coiled up in the body of the mother. The functions and phenomena of the corporeal structure are illustrations of the universal law. "This incessant movement and progression which all things partake could never become sensible to us but by contrast to some principle of fixture or stability in the soul." Emerson declares, "While the Eternal generation of circles proceeds, the Eternal Generator abides. The Central life is somewhat superior to creation, superior to knowledge and thought, and contains all its circles. Forever it labors to create a life and thought as large and excellent as itself, but in vain: for that which is made instructs us how to make a better." The incessant progress is not a blind rushing forth into space by a centrifugal impulse, which has been already noticed as being the masculine endowment, but a twofold operation. The principle of stability, the something passive and feminine in the universe, retains the motion in permanent relations, thus binding all human beings eternally to the Right. We see this in the world of moral activity. Every one does the bidding of God: some by interior disposition and prompting, because they are children of the household; others by force and stress of circumstances, because they sustain only the relation of slaves. The world at large is constantly on the look-out for results. It is as a demand for the harvest directly after the sowing of the seed. The utilitarians, the practical men so-called, those who believe in no real good except where some material benefit can be seen and measured, harp incessantly on this point. Even religious teachers of a certain character reason in the same way, as though they knew no logic, no moral standard, but that of observable results. Such persons are the Sadducees of society. The idea of being or

doing right is of small account to them, except as it brings reputation, distinction or pecuniary profit. Judas Iscariot with his thirty pieces of silver would count for more with these practical individuals than Jesus with heaven and all goodness at his back. But true souls do not reason thus. Nor is the standard of truth to be obtained from the phenomena of the world of sense. Knowledge derived from the senses alone does not unfold or establish a moral truth. Whatever we perceive in that way, can go no farther than an opinion or conjecture, or perhaps belief. All such notions and guesses must be duly measured before they may be accepted. It is the province of Philosophy to furnish us with the proper standard or criterion by which to distinguish the true from the false, the right from the wrong. Here weak moralities may be overlooked. They are superficial and little else than endeavors to determine eternal principles by a rule of human limitation, to circumscribe the universe of thought by narrow prescriptions. The attempt to measure the waters of the ocean with a quart pot, or to define the unlimited space and govern it as one would manage a private estate, would be as reasonable. Human thought and action cannot be judged aright on one common plane. What is wise for one is often foolishness far another; what is lovely and beautiful in one may be hateful and ugly in another, and what is right for one may be wrong for another - according to the moral condition and our way of regarding matters. Indeed our virtues may need forgiving as well as our faults, for they may have in them something of the taint of egotism and insincerity, while our faults may in their turn be partially redeemed by having in them somewhat of an aspiring and endeavor for the right. The conquest over evil is not shown by a triumphing over it, but by putting it out of the mind altogether. In short, philosophy has little to do with the cheap successes of the every-day world, nor does it rely upon transient phenomena for its exponents. It never ages with common experiences. It is always the same, never old, but always youthful and vigorous. "In nature every moment is new," says Emerson; "the past is always swallowed and forgotten; the coming only is sacred. Nothing is secure but life - the transition, the energizing spirit. No love can be bound by oath or covenant to secure it against a higher love. No truth so sublime but it may be trivial tomorrow in the light of new thoughts." We cannot, therefore, attain to the concept of right by the observation of things that are changing every hour and moment. There is a higher law for determining the matter. "The service which Sokrates rendered to philosophy," Schleiermacher declares, "consisted not so much in the truths arrived at, as in the method by which truth is taught." It was his belief that the distinction of Right and Wrong was a permanent fact, and not solely a matter of conventional usage. This is the issue between the philosopher and the worldly-wise man, between the child of God and the worshiper of mammon. All genuine reasoning is geometric. It is not merely a dealing with things observed and experienced, but the employing of the higher standard to measure them. The knowledge of this standard is the highest of which the human being is capable. Hence the exhortation of Sokrates to Aristodemos,* "If thou wouldst experience what is the wisdom and love of God, render thyself deserving of some of those divine secrets which may not be penetrated by man, but are imparted to those alone who consult, who adore and who obey the Deity. Then shalt thou understand, my Aristodemos, that there is a Being whose eye passes through all nature, and whose ear is open to every sound, extended to all places, extending through

all time, and whose bounty and care know no other bounds than those fixed by his own creation." ----------* XENOPHON: Memorabilia of Sokrates, I, iv, Sec. 14 ----------Thus the faculty of veneration duly exercised with patient, persistent obedience to the conviction of Right and earnest desire to know the Truth pronounces for us the magic words, "Open Sesame!" Reverence and contemplation bring our minds into the close embrace of Divinity, and so what is known to him becomes in due measure perceptible to us. We know it subjectively by our will and affections, and objectify it when we reproduce it in our own life and action. "Hence," says professor Cocker, "those are the true philosophers alone who love the sight of Truth, and who have attained to the vision of order, and righteousness, and beauty, and goodness, in the Eternal Being. And the means by which the soul is raised to this vision of real Being is the Science of real Knowledge." Thus we perceive that Philosophy transcends all learning from books, demonstration and common experience. It is in no sense "a doing as the Romans do," having relation to place and circumstance but overlooking the weightier matters. Its field is the real truth, the higher life, the facts which are beyond sense and speech. Wisdom is not the mere knowing of things that may be learned, but everything essentially good; philosophy is the love and pursuing of essential goodness and truth. Understanding and upperstanding, perception and apperception here go together. Such is the case with all things intellectible, all philosophic learning, all actual knowing. There are certain ideas or principles in every mind which govern unconsciously all processes of thought. They may be dormant or as if in embryo, and so requiring to be brought to manifestation in the active life; but they nevertheless exist. We can, therefore, by contemplation and reflection, apprehend and cognize what is true. That there is truth genuine, absolute truth - is a fact as positive as that there is light; and as the latter is apprehended by an organism which somehow conveys the impression to the mind, so the former has the mind itself for an organ to receive and assimilate it. There is but one perfect, infallible truth; there can be no variant, discordant, rival truths. All, therefore, who apprehend variant, discordant, rival truths. All, therefore, who apprehend the truth, apprehend it alike. Truth is divine, and we know and love it because of the divine principle in us by which it is known and apprehended. That principle is capable of this apperceiving because it is of like essence with that which is apperceived. This is knowing by intuition, or if a bolder term is preferred - by divine inspiration. We are thus brought, so to speak, face to face with Divinity itself. In the most interior part of the mind is the fountain of all real knowledge, all truth, all certainty - because there we and Divinity are at one. The Supreme Mind must always be self-conscious, knowing the right and all that is good. The mind which this Supreme Mind inspires, will, in a peculiar manner, apprehend that which is exterior to it by the light from within itself, and know all things in their quality by their likeness or unlikeness to itself. Thus there is imparted to us from the Divine Source for our participation, a prophetic ken, the intuition of that which is true, and the instinct to perceive that which is good.

This is a genuine spiritualism, a spirituality which is of the interior spirit and life. It is the philosophy which embraces in its scope the worship and love of God, including also and comprehending the order of the cosmos from its great involving Mind and extending into every department of spirit and nature. As a factor in human progress it is the one essential which fires human beings in their just relations to the universe and the supreme central life. There is no other agency capable of superseding it or even equal to it. "Would to God," cried Moses, "that all the people were inspired and that God would give forth his spirit to them." For this is the ideal of all attainment. This intuitive faculty is the highest of our powers. We have others that are subordinate and of themselves incomplete; as observation, which leads us to conjecture, and emotion that may culminate in faith. We have also the understanding with which to compare and measure; yet even this by itself is misleading when it has no rule or standard other than is afforded by evidence from others. But there is the true light that illumines everyone coming into the world. As we left the Eternal Region and became invested with the web of Matter, and eventually were born as human beings, the Word, the Logos or outflowing ray from God was still with us. In the perfect development of the instinct peculiar to us into the unerring consciousness of right and wrong, and the conception of the source and consequence of events, we have the full fruition of this power. More noble is this than any clear-vision produced by subordinate agencies. I speak not depreciatingly of the one, but praise that which is more excellent. It would be sheer folly to set a low value upon instruction upon the services of one to another, or other instrumentalities by which human beings are assisted and benefitted. We offer no disrespect to silver when we praise gold, nor do we dishonor the quartz pebble by extolling the brilliancy of the diamond. "It is no proof of understanding for a man to be able to confirm what he pleases," says Swedenborg, "but to be able to discern that that is true, which is really so, and that that is false which is really so." Thus the human understanding is less than the Supreme Reason. Human progress, therefore, is always an approaching out of the universe into God, and Philosophy is the discipline which conducts us to Him. (Metaphysical Magazine, vol. 15, no. 5, Nov., 1901) ----------------

HEBREW SCRIPTURES INTERPRETED ASTROLOGICALLY - Alexander Wilder Professor Thomas K. Cheyne, of the University of Oxford, has gained a wide celebrity for his extensive learning and his advocacy of the modern criticism. His translation of the book of Isaiah, with its new arrangement of subjects and explanatory notes, is a work of acknowledged merit; but his Bampton Lectures of 1889 evoked general controversy by their remarkable utterances. Recently, however, in an article contributed to the Nineteenth Century and After, he gives occasion for a profounder sensation by his suggestions in relation to the true sense of the Hebrew Sacred Writings.

The most important point for those of us who study the Old Testament, he defines as "how, by a combination of old methods with new, and by the attainment of a new point of view to reconstruct our study; and how, by the gentlest possible transition to introduce our pupils and the public to this new treatment of the Old Testament." With this purpose in mind he presents explanations of Hugo Winckler, an Assyriologist of distinction, relating to the prehistoric period of Israelitish antiquity. The Oriel Professor of Interpretation of the Holy Scriptures, and the learned Assyriologist, have only entered a field where others had already preceded them. Dr. Ignaz Goldziher, of the Hungarian Academy of Science, published a work many years ago to show the legendary character of the Hebrew sacred literature. Originally, he declares, the name of the Patriarchs and the actions which are told of them signified nothing historic. "The names are appellations of physical phenomena," he affirmed, "and the actions are the actions of Nature." A countryman of our own, Dr. Milton Woolley, of Illinois, also wrote a treatise on "The Science of the Bible," about the same time, setting forth that the Patriarchs, the leading personages and events described, were representations of the heavenly bodies in their various periods and revolutions. His parallelisms were ingenious and well adapted to impress the reader favorably. Indeed, in the various ancient countries, the historic beginnings are lost in the midst of indefiniteness and uncertainty, and this obscure period was filled up with tales of heroes - personages of divine origin and quality. In Hebrew history the period between the first entrance into Canaan and the establishment of the monarchy abounds with such legends. There are many of them likewise in the Rabbinic writings outside of the Canon. Hugo Winckler has added his testimony to the others, and Professor Cheyne, considering his views as more reasonable and better defined, has ventured to submit them for candid examination. The time has become riper for the promulgating of doctrines and interpretations that a little while ago were accounted unsound or even dangerous. Thus it is now a tolerated opinion among "practical churchmen" that the Patriarch Abraham was not a historic personage. The other distinguished characters in Hebrew story are also to be treated from the point of view of a criticism founded upon the facts of a comparative study of the legends of the East. Several theories have been offered in regard to the impersonating of the Hebrew Patriarchs. Dr. Oort explains opportunely for our intelligent comprehension, that the early tribes were not united as a single nation, but that everyone of them, every clan and family, had regulations and a religious worship peculiar to itself. There were "holy places" or capitals like Hebron, where Abram was revered as the Original Ancestor: Shechem and Beth El, where the "sons of Jacob" frequented; Beer Sheba to which the "children of Esau" also resorted; and the Bible names others like Gibeon, Gilgal and Mizpah. These places were indicated by sacred symbols, "great stones," trees, wells, and the serpent.* When the tribes were brought together as a single people they would not consent to yield these up for any other worship, and, accordingly, those who had religious matters in charge adopted them into the new rites, giving them new meanings and constructing new legends for the purpose. The names of the various tribes and districts were made into those of men and brought into connection with each other. Thus Abram of Hebron, Isaac of Beer Sheba, and Jacob of Beth El, became grandfather, father and son. -------------

* The serpent was probably the totem of the tribe of Levi, whose designation has that meaning. Moses the Lawgiver was reputed to have been a member of that tribe, and on the occasion of a revolt against his authority, the Levites are described as having rallied for his support. (Compare Exodus, xxxii and Numbers, xxi.) He then placed the family symbol of the tribe, the Brasen or copper serpent, upon a standard, and required the subdued Israelites to pay homage to it. The Levites became the sacerdotal tribe, and so the sacred effigy was an object of general veneration till Kind Hezekiah overturned the popular worship and broke it to pieces. "For unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense unto it." - II Kings, xviii, 4. --------------According to Winckler, the material which legend worked into the semblance of history, was derived from mythology. The myths of the after Semitic peoples were borrowed directly or indirectly from Babylonia. There was also an Egyptian influence. The basis of the Hebrew legends is in the main a borrowed mythology. They appear to us in two classes: the one growing around the "heroes," such as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; the other, such as pertain to personages actually historic. After having been once made, they grow like natural things. There were trained literary persons always ready to change and adapt them to the changing wants of the time, giving new forms and interpretations, as the new occasion demanded them. We find in the Hebrew legends striking parallels to the mythologic tales that were current in other countries. As these may have been changed to meet the requirements in one country we find them more complete and in a more original form in another. Thus the discoveries now in progress in the region formerly known as Assyria and in the valley of the Euphrates are revealing to us the sources from which the compilers of the book of Genesis derived many of the traditions which they wrought into their narrative. The religion of the Israelites seems to have been shaped by their habits of life. They were from the first essentially a nomadic people. This is signified by the record that they were descendants of Eber the Wanderer, but not from Joktan, the Dweller in a Fixed Abode. It is a peculiarity of wandering peoples that they reckon time by nights, and in their thinking they regard the night as before and superior to the day. But with the agricultural communities, like the Eranians and the Greeks, the day and the sun received their principal regard and veneration. The Dyus of India, the Zeus of ancient Greece, Ahura Mazda and Jupiter, were divinities representing the Light and the Day. Hence a critical examination of the Patriarchs and religion of the Hebrews indicates them to have been worshipers of the Moon and starry heaven, personifying these as powerful spiritual beings. Indeed, the Moon-god was often in very ancient periods described as masculine, while the Sun was represented a female, or as a youth of inferior nature. "Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, then," as Winckler affirms, "are lunar heroes." This may be correct, yet by its etymology, the name "Ab-ran" signifies "the Father on high," and seems therefore to indicate Saturn, the outermost planet in ancient astronomy, and so by impersonation and apotheosis, the divinity ruling the region of Night and Supreme Lord of the World of departed souls. We do not, however, dispute the hypothesis which Winckler has made very plausible. Terah, the father of Abram, comes from Ur of the Chaldeans or Kasdim, which was a metropolis of the Moon-worship in Southern Babylonia, and halts as Haran, another focus of the same worship.

The reader will observe that with this mode of interpretation, there is involved a vast amount of repetition. The same thing seems to be said over and over again to utter weariness. This results from the fact that every tale and episode was at first the legend of a tribe or people by itself, and that the union of tribes into a nation was accompanied by a blending of their respective customs and traditions. The composite structure thus produced was somewhat analogous to what we observe of the days and seasons, each of which is as a recurring of the one which preceded. Sarah, the sister and wife of Abraham (Genesis, xx, 12) is the counterpart of Istar, the daughter of the Moon-god and therefore sister of the patriarch. Istar was also the wife of Tammuz (see Ezekiel vii, 14), of whom Abraham is also the "heroic reflection." Little is said of Isaac, who dwells at Beer Sheba, "the Well of the Seven," but Jacob is more definitely described. The name of his father-in-law, Laban, "the white one," at once suggests the Moon, and the two daughters, Leah and Rachel, stand respectively, one for the new moon and the other for the full moon. Dinah, the daughter of Leah, represents Istar, the daughter of the Moon-god, and with her six brothers makes up the number of days of the week. The explanations of Goldziher, however, seem to be plainer. He describes Abraham as the Sky at night, and Sarah, his principal wife, as the Moon - honored as "princess" and "queen of heaven" and its stars. The book of Jeremiah mentions her worship by Judean women at the time of the overthrow of the Southern Monarchy. Hagar, the other consort of Abraham, was the Sun in female character, and her flight (hagira) from her jealous mistress (Genesis xvi.) denoted the day fleeing from the night. There is likewise an important religious change indicated in this part of the story. Isaac, "the laughing one," "the shining one," also denoted the Sun. The legend in its original form described him as being slain by his father, thus representing the Day as put to an end by the Night. At the period when this was the form of the legend, the sacrifice of children was common in the East. The early Israelite colonists in Palestine had the same customs as the predominant Canaanite population. God - Alaim or Elohim - was worshiped by both peoples with the same murderous and lascivious rites (Psalm cvi, 34-40). But as the Hebrews grew into a nation the Lord - Jahveh or Yava - was proclaimed as the god of Israel, finally but tardily uprooting the rival worship. The religious writings and traditions were revised in consonance with the new conditions. This occurred with the legend of Isaac. The elohistic divinity commands Abraham to immolate Isaac, his "only one." The legend in its earlier form relates that this was done. The sacrifice of the favorite son, the ihid or "only one," was not an ancient custom. I Kings ii, 27; Jeremiah vi, 20; Amos viii, 10; Zechariah xii, 10. But in the revised form of the story it is stated that as the patriarch was about to inflict the fatal blow, an angel or messenger of "the Lord" forbade it. The prophets of the later period taught that the Lord never required the sacrifice of living beings in his worship as had been common before - Micah vi, 6-8; Isaiah I, 11; Jeremiah vii, 22. The respective numbers of the descendants of the two wives of Jacob, Leah and Rachel, are declared to be significant in the calendar. Joseph is described by Winckler as a "solar hero." His name is not properly that of a tribe; indeed, in a larger sense he impersonates all the tribes which subsequently formed the kingdom of Northern Israel and of which he may be regarded as the patron deity Psalm lxxviii, 67). The key to his divine character lies in Genesis xxxvii, 10, where he is represented as dreaming that the sun, moon and eleven stars did homage to him. The interpretation is given by his father, Jacob:

"I, thy mother and thy brethren." But the mother has no place in an act of homage, and it is in the South Arabian mythology, and not in the Babylonian, that the sun is regarded as a feminine personality. "In the original story, then, it was the Moon-god (Jacob) with his children that bowed down before the Sun-god (Joseph), his son." With this presentation of the subject, the rest of the interpretation is comparatively easy. Abraham and Jacob being lunar heroes, they procure their spouses from the land of Moon-worship, while Joseph, a solar hero, goes to Egypt, the land of the sun, and marries the daughter of the priest of Heliopolis. In another aspect Joseph, like Abraham, represent Tammuz, the Sun-god of the spring, who is described as dying and passing into the world of the dead, from which he is brought back by Istar who had gone down in quest of him. The same thing is accordingly signified in the story of Joseph. He is cast into a pit and raised out of it, as if from the underworld. His life in Egypt represents the Sun abiding for the winter in the Southern region of the sky, the period also denoted in which Tammuz is dead. Other personages of the Bible are interpreted by different writers in a similar way. The Chronicle of Tabiti, an Arabian work, describes Joshua as the son of Mary or Miriam, the sister of Moses. In this case, Joshua represents the Sun-god, while Miriam was an Oriental goddess. The story of Samson is generally acknowledge to be a myth of the Sungod. The name itself signifies the Sun, and all the adventures imputed to him are easily explained by that theory. Their parallels are found in the legends of Herakles or the Tyrian Melkart, and those of other classic divinities. Delila, his anamorata, who lives in the "Valley of Vines, or Sorek, is the analogue of Deianira, the daughter of Oineus," the "wineproducer" and consort of the Dorian hero. Yet it may be that her name, about the meaning of which Hebrew lexico-prophecy do not agree, is the same as Lilith the "night-demoness," whose character she parallels, enchanting her lover and betraying him to his enemies to be blinded and imprisoned. This illustrates the evening overcoming the god of day, and consigning him to hopeless darkness. Saul is also a luna hero and opens the succession of kings in Israel as Sin* the Moon-god of Babylonia stands at the head of gods and stars. His visit to the witch or Baaless at En-Dor corresponds to the journey already mentioned of Istar, the daughter of Sin, the Moon-god, to the region of the dead. Again, as in the Babylonian mythology, the Sun is the child of the Moon, so Jonathan, also a solar hero, is the son of Saul. Likewise as Tammuz the Sun-god died and rose again, so Jonathan is described as having been sentence to death and afterward received from the dead "in a figure." - I Samuel xiv, 43-45. ----------* The name Sinai indicates that the place is set apart for the worship of this divinity. ----------It will be observed that these mythic personages are often changed from one character to another like the figures in the kaleidoscope. With such flexibility, Saul and Jonathan are transformed into two brothers, personifying the constellation Gemini. They appear as such in the famous dirge in which David praises the bow of Jonathan and the sword or lance of Saul. The Hebrews, as well as the Babylonians, knew of a lance-star and a bow-star.

The designations "Saul" and "David" are hardly to be regarded as birth-names. There are many other instances in the Bible of the same character. Saul in the Hebrew text is spelled with the same letters as "Sheol," the appellation of the region of night and death. David, or "Dud," as the name was lettered originally, signifies "the one beloved," and is properly a name of the god Adonis or Tammuz, the beloved of Istar.* Hence David is also a solar hero, and his red hair is the image of the rays of the Sun. Likewise, as Saul and Jonathan correspond to the zodiacal constellation Gemini, so David is the legendary reflex of Leo. His conquest of Goliath, his passionate tenderness for Jonathan and other peculiarities, have each their analogues in mythologic story. -----------* There is significance in the peculiar meaning of the names. "Dido," which was a designation of the Syrian goddess Astarte, is the feminine of the name Dud or David; and the Hebrew name of Solomon, S-LaMbA, is the masculine of Salambo, another appellation of the goddess. ------------Doubtless, however, such interpretations will seem to many readers unnatural and far-fetched, as well as arbitrary and unaccountable. What is uttered obscurely has been aptly described as also obscurely thought. We desire and even demand that all ideas and subjects of profound character shall be uttered in language at once simple and familiar. Yet it should be borne in mind that all words are symbols and represent sounds which have only a conventional meaning. The old languages had limited vocabularies, and so every term and name was necessarily employed with a great variety of meanings. When we say that the stick which we stick into the ground will stick there, we illustrate how such a differentiation is required. Besides there is a different genius and habit of thinking with us now. Much of the vagueness and what we may deem absurdity which are found in old legends may be attributed to the fact that we are living in another period, with other culture and habits of thinking, and are therefore unfamiliar with Oriental and especially with ancient modes of expression and figures of speech. An acquaintance with the folklore and mythology of former times will do much to enlighten and disabuse our minds in regard to their signification and influence. The legends that were current with those ancient peoples, abounded with symbolic names and expressions which, however obscure they may seem to us, were as plain to them as our simpler utterances are to our fellows. The interpretations which we have learned to give to the folk-lore and legends of India, Assyria and Greece, our Orientalists and other scholars are venturing to apply to those to be found in Hebrew literature, both in the Bible and in Rabbinic writings. There is no necessity on this account to consider any of them discredited. They are as full as ever of energy as elements of literature and spiritual life. Indeed, the old tales still entertain the inhabitants of the nursery. Cinderella is as true and as highly esteemed as "Holy Writ." The cow leaping over the moon is a legend venerable for its antiquity, and describes an occurrence familiar to us all. The drama of Romeo and Juliet had its inception originally in a tale descriptive of the evening twilight perishing at the grave of the setting sun. The great tragedy of Oedipus, slaying his father and marrying his mother, after which he plucked out his eyes at hearing of his double crime, is a figurative relation representing the Day as son of the Night and Twilight,

unwittingly destroying his father, uniting afterward with the twilight of evening and passing into darkness. The treasury of folklore abounds with such legends without number. "It is by no means true," say De Gubernatis, "that the ancient systems of mythology have ceased to exist; they have only been diffused and transformed. The nomen is changed; the numen remains. Its splendor is diminished, because it has lost its celestial reference and significance, because it has become more earthy; but its vitality still remains." After the rise of the dominion of Assyria upon the ruins of the Hittite Empire of the Upper Euphrates, the two monarchies of Israel and Judah become known to the Greater World. About the same time appears the developing of their literature. The prophets began to write their discourses, and the names of the Hebrew kings were inscribed among the tributary chiefs upon the cuneiform tablets in the royal library at Nineveh. The myths no longer sufficed the purpose. They were now transformed into narratives as of events that actually occurred in the several countries, and the numerous designations of the natural phenomena losing their former significations, became names of gods and heroes. Mythology thus became auxiliary to religion. Such were the transformations in ancient Greece and Rome. The legends of heroes and ancestral divinities were elaborated into consecutive accounts, and the forces of nature were personified as individuals active in human affairs. Allegory too the place of the conciser fables, and literal narrative became more common. This, however, varied widely from historic accuracy; facts were often exaggerated, misrepresented, and even set aside for invented descriptions. The exigencies of statecraft, and of the religious hierarchy were supposed to require such perversions. "When," says Dr. Oort, "the books of the Old Testament were set aside and preserved as a Sacred Book by the Jews, and those of the New Testament were added to them by the Christians, it was with no idea of drawing knowledge of nature or history from them, but because they recognized them as the rule of faith and conduct." Writing with a religious object paramount, he acknowledges that they often sacrificed the historic truth. "As a rule," he declares, "they concerned themselves very little with the question whether what they narrated really happened or not; and their readers were just as far from exercising what is known as 'historical criticism.' If a narrative was edifying, if its tendency fell in with the tastes of the readers, then they called it true; while those whose points of view or whose sympathies were opposed, called it untrue, and sometimes set up another story, purely invented, which agreed with their views in opposition to it. This is why the Old and New Testament are so full of legends." Professor Cheyne concludes his article with an appeal to conservative and moderate critics. Their present attitude toward problems and solutions like those which he has given, if persisted in, he declares, will condemn their labor to a comparative sterility. What the old methods of criticism can attain has been accomplished, and the results are imperfect. He pleads accordingly: "Would it not be better to put aside prejudice, and suppose that we have indeed arrived at a turning-point, and that the Old Testament study is indeed in course of being transformed to a great extent into a branch of the study of Semitic antiquity? There will still be subjects apart from this wide study which require special consideration. But at present all the subjects which have till lately been supposed to be fairly settled - in text, lexicon, grammar, exegesis, history - need to be investigated from a virtually new point of view."

Such is the task which he considers as appointed for the men of the twentieth century. He is conscious that the old things have passed away. Scientific exploration, centuries ago, removed the earth from its supposed foundation and importance as the center of the universe, and showed it a subordinate globe careering with the stars. It has likewise disproved the accepted legends of the Creation and Universal Deluge, and demonstrated for Matter an undetermined antiquity with for humankind an indefinite Past. It has further ascertained that the various religious festivals and observances were not formally instituted by the Supreme Being, but were ordinances and customs devised by men as commemorative of the revolutions and other phenomena occurrent in the earth and sky. For example, it was learned that the season of spring was ushered in by the Sun when entering the zodiacal sign of Aries, and crossing the equinoctial line, and that these things were symbolized by the figure of a lamb upon a cross. The Easter festival also relates to this event, and its peculiar variations, year by year, are made in order to conform to the peculiar positions of the Sun and Moon, the former divinities. It was the period when the Hebrews killed the lamb of the passover (pasch-opfer), and ancient people of the East celebrated the death of their murdered god, and his resurrection or ascending on high. Then, likewise, among the Greek-speaking nations, was the festival of Demeter and Kora, when after a fast of forty days, the worshipers celebrated the Mother's recovery of her daughter from the world of the dead to enjoy her society for the coming season of seedtime and harvest. The twenty-fifth of December was also a day of joyous festivity, when the birthday of the Sun-god was observed with its peculiar rites. Other periods were also regarded as significative of occurrences in the astral world. The Canon of the Hebrew Scriptures appears to have been compiled in its present form and condition, at the time of the Makkabean ascendency, with the understanding that it was not again to be changed. There seems, however, not to have been unanimity in the matter. The Samaritans rejected the whole work and made use of a version which they affirmed was more ancient and accurate. Sects also appeared, each taking its own view of the Sacred text. The Sadducees adhered to the literal meanings of the Thora; the Pharisees qualified it by philosophic and esoteric explanations and traditions. The Essenians or Iesaians were a distinct body which Jesus the son of Pandira is conjectured to have founded at that period.* They neither went to the temple nor offered sacrifices. They are described as a brotherhood, ascetic in their lives, vegetarians, with prophets, sacred writings, worship and regulations of their own. "They explain the philosophy of their country allegorically," says Philo; "for they consider the verbal interpretation as signs indicative of a sacred sense communicated in obscure intimations. They have also Commentaries by ancient men who, as founders of the sect, have left many monuments of their doctrine in allegoric representations which they use as models, imitating the manner of the original institution." -----------* Ginsburg, Essenes, p. 29. He was stoned and hanged on Passover eve in the reign of Alexander Jannaeos. -------------

There arose also other sects at later periods, but they all seem to have disappeared as a result of the final overthrow of the Judean nation. But the Sacred Canon remains, and is still venerated by Jews, Moslems and Christians, as the vehicle of divine inspiration. Nevertheless, the conviction has been steadily becoming fixed the minds of thoughtful individuals that the narratives of the Bible, and those in particular which relate to earlier periods, are not to be understood as being accounts of literal facts. It is by no means news however, for the same view has been entertained by persons of distinction ever since the Canon was completed. The Essenians of ancient Jewry were not alone in so believing and teaching. Philo and his associates of the Alexandrian School also expounded the Scriptures as having a philosophic meaning, which was embodied in the text. "Our legislator speaks somethings wisely but enigmatically," says Josephus, "and other things under a decent allegory." The apostle Paul also, when writing to his disciples in Galatia, made the declaration respecting the account of Abraham and his two sons; "which things are an allegory." Origen declared that every text in the Scripture had a threefold meaning - the historic, the moral, and the intellectual or superior spiritual sense. Maimonides, the celebrated Hebrew Rabboni of a later century, in his great work, the Mora ha Nebuhim, cautions the individual who has learned the true meaning of the book of Genesis, not to divulge it. The Kabalists also taught that "every word has a higher meaning, and every text teaches something besides the secrets which it seems to describe, and this superior doctrine is the genuine one." Emanuel Swedenborg in like manner ascribed a threefold signification to those books of the Bible which he denominated "The Word," as having an internal and celestial sense which may be ascertained by means of the Science of Correspondences. The Synoptic Gospels also record of Jesus that he was accustomed to employ parables or enigmatic illustrations when addressing the multitude. "With many such parables," the Evangelist declares, "he spake the word unto them as they were able to bear it; but without a parable spake he not unto them, and when they were alone expounded all things to his disciples." - Mark iv, 32, 33. We may, however, with much good reason, doubt whether the canons of criticism and the methods which are generally employed will enable the ascertaining of the Sacred Writings. The mythologic theory with all its apparent plausibility is hardly the true key. The tracings out of solar heroes and celestial phenomena, however ingenious and even probable, seems to leave many vital questions unsolved. Indeed, it is by no means unlikely that they might have been introduced into the ritual of worship of mnemonics, to enable the fixing of important facts in the memory. To assure the hold which these writings have maintained for so many centuries, they must embody matter of greater significance than astral myths. There is no occasion for alarm or even apprehension at the attempts to search the writings of the Hebrew prophets and apostles, and to learn the true meaning of the parables and allegories. The same faculty, the endowment which enabled the authors to compose these works, will enable us to understand them. There may be individuals now as formerly, having the power of discerning equivalent in some degree to the inspiration attributed to the ancient writers. It is well to prize the wise utterances perpetuated in books, and to esteem beyond comparison the religion of a book. But it is far more profitable for us to hear and receive the living wisdom of our own day and generation as being better adapted to our conditions, better suited to our wants.

God sends his teachers unto every age, To every clime, and every race of men, With revelations fitted to their growth And shape of mind, nor gives the realm of Truth, Into the selfish rule of one sole race; Therefore, each form of worship that hath swayed The life of man, and given it to grasp The master-key of knowledge, REVERENCE, Enfolds some germs of goodness and of right. - J. R. Lowell

(Metaphysical Magazine, April, 1902) ---------------------

Evolution of the "New Testament" - Alexander Wilder All of mere transient date As symbol showeth; Here the inadequate To fulness groweth. - Goethe The ascertaining of such evidence in relation to the historic beginnings of Christianity, as shall be proof against contradiction and reasonable distrust, seems to be beyond the power of critical research. Our actual knowledge an able writer describes as being comprised in the fact that during the latter half of the first and the commencement of the second century of our era, a great spiritual religious movement evolved from a small Jewish sect; that it spread rapidly throughout the Roman world, and as rapidly developed or split into a variety of divergent sects, from out of which diversity there was gradually evolved what was known as the universal or Catholic Church; and that this eventually divided, two or three centuries later, into two parts, now known as the Roman and Greek communions. The various Protestant bodies coming into existence in more modern periods are of course not to be considered. Four cities were especially prominent at that time. Rome had precedence as the seat of imperial dominion; Antioch had been the capital of the Graeco-Syrian kingdom and still possessed much of the former distinction; Jerusalem was the focus of Judaism, and Alexandria the metropolis of culture, learning and philosophy. The conditions of intellectual life and thought existing in those cities were diffused elsewhere and were reflected in the new movement, becoming manifest in its numerous sects and phases of opinion. The principal literature pertaining to it at the beginning of the second century, appears to have consisted of several epistles accredited to the Apostle Paul, also the Catholic epistles of the apostles at Jerusalem, the Epistle to the Hebrews by an anonymous

author, and the Apocalypse of John. As well as we may fairly suppose, these compositions represent the ruling sentiment at the different centres of influence. The Pauline Epistles, in such case express the dominant opinions entertained at Antioch where a separate community was first established bearing the name of "Christian," and making no invidious distinction of class or nationality. The Epistle to the Hebrews is supposed to have been the work of an Alexandrian writer, perhaps of Apollos, and to be an endeavor to demonstrate the new beliefs to be the legitimate outcome of the Mosaic system. The book of Revelation belongs in the same catalogue. Its author appears to have been resident in Asia Minor, and tenacious of the spiritual superiority of the Jewish race and customs. He belabors all departures from strict conformity to the Law as so many moral delinquencies, and presents a series of symbolic representations to illustrate his views. In short, these several productions indicate the existence of active partisanship between the adherents to the Jewish discipline, and the advocates of catholicity. This partisanship is set forth in the Epistle to the Corinthians: "Every one saith: 'I am of Paul'; and 'I of Apollos,' and 'I of Cephus' and 'I of Christ.'" The writer explains the nature of these diversities; that the Jews asked for a sign, a symbol of authority; the Greeks sought for wisdom and transcendent learning, but he and his associates, he declares, proclaimed "Christ crucified," as combining divine power and divine wisdom. It would not be wonderful if the new dogma exhibiting such diversities, should fail for a long time to obtain such prominence as to enable it to manifest itself distinctly on the history of the active world. Whatever records may have been made of it would hardly be considered as of much importance. Nevertheless, it is upon such records and traditions that the evidence depends that such a personage as Jesus actually existed. If there is a disposition to doubt or cavil in regard to this matter, there is certainly abundant occasion and opportunity. The strong argument in its behalf is to be found in the fact that the Christian religion has existed in one form and another from that period to the present time. Another misconception likewise exists in relation to the nature and aims of the Christianity of the primitive period. The Jews had been on the lookout for a leader like David or Judas Maccabaeus, to lead them out of bondage to the Roman yoke. The primitive church contemplated the advent of their Messiah and the termination of the existing order of things. "There are some standing here," Jesus is recorded as declaring, "who shall not taste of death till they see the kingdom of God come with power." "The result was that men ceased to consider terrestrial and human conditions," Professor Hoffden, of Copenhagen declares: "Civilization, conduct in temporal circumstances, the life of the family and the State, in art and in science, could have no immediate value, no positive significance. A sense of expectation, inert, but intense, was the essential condition of the soul. 'The kingdom of God' was not to be realized by long effort, upon the solid ground of nature and human life by the discovery and production of articles of value. The only important thing was to be ready to receive Him, when - and that in their own generation, even - He should appear in a supernatural manner in the heavens." * Such a preparation was all that mattered. Consequently what need of change in the actual circumstances of life? It was better for men to refrain from marriage, and to abstain from giving their daughters in marriage; why should the slave seek to free himself? None of these things were worth attention, for they belonged to the order of things that would soon pass away.**

----------* Mark, xiii, 26, 27, 30: "Then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory. And then shall he send his angels, and shall gather together his elect ('the chosen people') from the four winds, from the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of heaven.... Verily, I say unto you, that this generation shall not pass till all these things be done." ** 1st Epistle to the Corinthians, vii, 18-31. ----------The "Gospel according to Mark" appears to have been the older of these. It has been conjectured that it was compiled from some production already in existence, but this is by no means certain. The Greek text is provincial, and terms are used which show both a Latin influence, and familiar relations with the rural population of Galilee. It introduces Jesus as receiving from John the "Baptism of the higher life"* then as immediately hurried into the desert to undergo a discipline, the description of which is couched in the vague terms which are suggestive of initiatory rites.** ----------* Metanoia, Superior thinking, higher moral condition. ** Mark i, 12-13: "And immediately the spirit sendeth him away into the desert. And he was in the desert forty days tempted of Satan, and was with the beasts, and the angels waited on him." ---------This probation is described at greater length by the other Synoptics, and would seem to resemble initiations at Pergamos, where was a high mountain, a lofty temple, and a prospect commanding a view of many countries. The passage here quoted reminds us of the Secret Rites of Mithras, which had been introduced into the Roman world. The candidates were admitted by the rite of baptism. They had a species of Eucharist, whilst the courage and endurance of the neophyte were tested by twelve successive trials, called Tortures, undergone within a cave constructed for the purpose. The members in several of the twelve degrees bore the designation of animals. Justin Martyr asserted that evil spirits taught these rites to mimic those of the Gospels. It is apparent from the tenor of the various writings, that this Second Advent and the general overturn was expected at the period of the destruction of Jerusalem by Vespasian. This expectation, however, was not realized as had been expected, and was therefore postponed. Meanwhile, there was a completer development of the new doctrines in the Second Century. Many changes took place both in the secular world and in the world of thought. Men of learning began to take interest in the new doctrines. As was natural, they made important modifications, and even blended them with the systems and theories then extant. In this way, there were "Gospels" produced at different times and places to afford countenance and support to the peculiar forms of belief that existed in the regions where they were promulgated. In conformity also with a practice that was common at that time, the name of an apostle or distinguished individual belonging to an earlier period was prefixed, as though the work had been prepared "according to" his authority. There were many of these productions originally, but most of them presently dropped out of favor, till

only four have remained to be acknowledged as orthodox and canonical. Three of these are usually classed together as the "Synoptic Gospels," and are supposed to describe the career of Jesus in consecutive order. The Gospel further records that upon the arrest of John, Jesus began his teachings. Making his residence at Capernaum, he chooses twelve of his disciples to be his special representatives and with them establishes a household. Following the example of philosophers, he addresses the multitude in parables and such utterances as can be understood; and when they are alone he explains everything to the twelve. This indicates what has been sometimes confidently asserted, that the early Christian teachings were both esoteric and popular, only "the perfect" being cognizant of the profounder knowledge. It is significant that although the theme of the narrative is confined to the First Century of the present era, when the school of the Pharisees was distinguished by many of its brightest luminaries, not one of them is named. Yet there was Shammai, Abtalion, Hillel, Gamaliel, and others. Instead, the Pharisees are mentioned as jealous, malicious, and in every way unworthy. Yet the earlier followers of the new doctrine were of that party. It may have been from the animosity so common in families and in religious and political parties between members who dissent from one another. More likely, however, the Gospels were written in a later century, when hostile feelings between Jews and Christians became pronounced. "False brethren," are mentioned with bitterness and the cruelty incident to religious conflict is notorious. A similar reticence is noteworthy in relation to the Roman governors and officers in Judea and Galilee. This, too, is indicative that the writings were composed at a later period than the First Century. The Gospel ascribed to Matthew is evidently an endeavor to supplement the older work. While the former is chiefly a series of anecdotes somewhat after the manner of the Dhammapada, the latter constructs the story of Jesus into a tragedy. It also excels in style as well as in point of view. Both are exclusive productions, giving little countenance to any wider field of labor. "Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and enter not into a city of Samaritans," is the lesson of the two Gospels, "but only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." But there was a change in the progress over the Roman world, which was destined to modify all these conditions. The Emperor Hadrian, statesman rather than warrior, employed himself in the endeavor to place the administration of affairs on a permanent basis. Visiting every region of the Empire, he made himself familiar with the proposed work. Where war had produced desolation, he sought to restore, building cities and temples, and setting jurists to work to prepare a code for the empire. Charmed by the social conditions of Athens, he desired that such should be generally established. The attempt to establish uniform religious worship was not so easy. The Emperor, himself a Spaniard, had determined to do away with the discords which rival faiths had kept active. This had apparently been accomplished at Alexandria, the great centre of learning and philosophy. Serapis, then the divinity of the Egyptian Secret Rites, was recognized by the philosophers as denoting the Anima Mundi and Supreme being, and they had joined the Gnosis, or superior knowledge of the East, to their speculations. The Jews participated in the general syncretism, and teachers like Bardesanes and Valentinus adopted Jesus, as the Logos or word, as Lord and Creator, manifest in a human body and dwelling on the

earth. The Emperor observed all this when at Alexandria and described it in a letter to the Consul Servianus. "As for Egypt," says he, "I have found its people wholly light, wavering and hurrying after every breath of a report. Those who worship Serapis are Christians, and those who call themselves Bishops of Christ are devoted to Serapis. There is no ruler of a Jewish synagogue, no Samaritan, no presbyter of the Christians, who is not a mathematician (astrologist), an augur and a soothsayer. The very Patriarch himself, when he came into Egypt, was by some said to worship Serapis, and by others to worship Christ. As a race of men they are seditious, vain and spiteful; as a body, wealthy and prosperous, of whom nobody lives in idleness; their one God is nothing; Christians, Jews and all nationalities worship him. I wish this body of men was better behaved and worthy of their number; for, as for that, they ought to hold the first place in Egypt. I have granted everything to them; I have restored their old privileges, and have made them grateful by adding new ones." But the Jews were not regarded with such favor. They were far from enduring patiently the treatment which they were receiving. The emperor built their metropolis anew, calling it after his own name Aelia, a designation which was retained two hundred years. A temple to Jupiter was erected upon the former site, and a statue placed at the "Holy of holies." This was, to Jewish eyes, truly "the abomination of desolation standing where it ought not." At Bethlehem was dedicated a shrine in honor of Adonis, the divinity at whose annual rites were represented his violent death, the mourning for his fate, his resurrection on the third day, and ascension on high. But as though this was not enough, a special tax was imposed on all Jews, so severe that many, to escape it, foreswore their religion and removed the bodily evidence of belonging to that people. Thus it was a repetition of the attempt of Antiochus Epiphanes, centuries before, who sought to consolidate his subjects of diverse nationalities into one people and commanded every individual to forsake his own laws, and conform to the new regulations. After the overthrow of Jerusalem by Titus, the Jewish Sannedrim had been composed of Pharisees. The Imperial Governors had left to it the management of local matters. From the earlier periods of their history, the Pharisees had sought to perpetuate Judaism as a religion solely and not as a political power. Hence they were averse to the efforts of the Maccabees, and generally insisted upon keeping on good terms with the overlords, whoever they might be. But now one of their number resolved upon a movement for the deliverance of his people. Rabbi Akiba, a teacher of distinction, journeyed from country to country where the Jews were scattered, and found little difficulty in organizing them for revolt. He also found a leader for the enterprise. This was Simeon bar Kozba, later known as Barcochba, the son of the star. He appears to have been generally recognized as the chosen deliverer, and to have been honored like high priests and former princes, like Saul of Israel and Cyrus of Persia as a Messiah. He justified expectation, displaying prowess and superior ability as a commander. There was a general denouncing of former jealousies and animosities. Samaritans and others flocked to his standard till his force exceeded half a million. He expelled the Roman rulers and established the Jewish religion and authority as they existed under the Maccabees. He also assumed regal authority, restoring the Sanhedrim and coining money. The Christian Jews though still in affiliation with their countrymen, nevertheless withheld their allegiance, belaboring him as a false Christ. Regarding them as enemies and adherents of the Roman rulers, they were punished, accordingly, by imprisonment and scourging as criminals.

It has generally been supposed that the predictions of the Synoptic Gospels, relating to the calamities about to fall upon the Jewish people, had reference solely to events connected with the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus. These predictions embraced the declaration that all things would undergo change, that Jesus would come a second time and the kingdom of God be installed in power and transcendent glory. All, however, went on as before, creating necessity for new interpretations. Doctor Thomas Inman suggests accordingly, in his treatise on Ancient Faiths, that during the reign of Barcochba there were certain additions made to the existing narratives of the life of Jesus. He quotes from the twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew and the thirteenth of Mark, to illustrate this supposition. He considers the setting up of the image of Jupiter by Hadrian upon the site of the Temple as being "the abomination of desolation standing where it ought not," and regards as signifying this the sentence immediately following: "Let him that readeth understand." This, he declares, indicates that the verses in those chapters were circulated in manuscript, but not uttered aloud: They could be read as though spoken by Jesus in reply to certain questions, but to be interpreted to apply to conditions of the subsequent period. The government of Barcochba lasted three years. The Roman general, Julius Severus, was able only after a prolonged conflict, to restore the Roman ascendency. The ground was contested at every step and the slaughter was prodigious. More than 580,000 of the Jews and allies fell, besides those that perished by sickness, fire and famine. Distinctions came into existence between the religious groups. The Jewish teachers rejected the Greek translations of the Sacred writings, which had been generally accepted by the disciples of the new faith. The Gospel which Paul had introduced as entirely upon his own responsibility, like the stone which the builders had rejected, was now head of the corner. It was an evangel, or general message, rather than a written treatise. Hence it has never appeared in any collection. Hence "the Gospel according to Luke," coming as a sequence to the other Synoptics, shows a broader field of activity. It was written for no pent-up Jewry. "The law and the prophets were until John the Baptist, but now the kingdom of heaven was preached, and everyone entered." Compiled as this Gospel was by a person not living in Syria or Palestine, there are several historic inaccuracies. Not only so, but it was not uncommon in ancient periods for individuals to make additions and interpolations. The first two chapters, as well as the first two chapters in the Gospel of Matthew are evidently of this character. The authorship of this work has been imputed to the Gnostic Marcion, who seems to have been familiar with some production of this character. The writer appears to have been familiar with the works of the other Synoptics. He excels them in learning and in style, as well as in breadth of view. He is ready on opportunity to introduce favorable mention of others than Jesus. "My mother and my brothers," says Jesus, "are those who hear the word of God and do it." When the lawyer asks who was the neighbor to be loved, he pointed out that he could be a Samaritan, in preference to a priest or Levite. Again, as though to nail the subject permanently, Jesus is represented as declaring that Jews could be thrust out of the kingdom of God, while men came from the East and from the West, and from the North and from the South, and took seats of honor with the patriarchs. These Synoptic Gospels concur in describing the teachings of Jesus as ethical, relating to conduct rather than to beliefs, Their narratives are interspersed with account of

"wonderful works" and matters which would be acceptable to the people to whom they were submitted. Doubtless many of the miracles there described were only symbols having, like parables, a deeper meaning. The Gospel accredited to John, and formerly supposed to have been the work of the apostle of that name, was evidently compiled after the others. The writer appears to have been familiar with them, though treating his subjects from a point of view widely different. If the Gospels of Mark and Matthew were in accord with the predominant belief at Jerusalem, and that of Luke represent the teachings at Antioch, then the Fourth Gospel may confidently be ascribed to the inspiration from Alexandria. In the Synoptic writings, Jesus is described as a man who is superior in moral excellence and wisdom, but in no sense exceeding the conditions which are inherent in our common human nature. But this writer prefaces his narrative with an introduction setting forth the Logos, or Living Word, as allied to God and actually Divine, and as being the Demiurgos by whom all created things came into objective existence. This word became flesh, and as a human being dwelt among men, in the personality of Jesus. It is by no means difficult to trace the germs of this doctrine to the writings of the philosophers. It seems, however, to have taken this form with the Jews of Alexandria, such as Aristobulus and Philo, but an essential modification was induced by contact with the philosophic opinions of the East. It was known as the Gnosis, or superior knowledge, and the leading lights of the Christian faith, equally with others, were among its receivers. Later ecclesiastical authority has professed to show a distinction between Gnostics and early Christians and even to demonstrate that Gnosticism was a perversion of the Gospel. But it is apparent that the Gnosis was the earlier system, and likewise Christian Theosophists were among its disciples. Basilides and Valentinus were of this number and the Gospel according to John has been affirmed to be in conformity with their teachings. The Fourth Gospel, it will be observed, differs sharply in statement and doctrine from the accounts of the Synoptics. For example, they have described Jesus as making his residence at Capernaum, where he instructed the twelve apostles in his profounder doctrines, and as confining his labors principally to Galilee. But in this Gospel he is represented as spending much of the time at Jerusalem where, after the manner of other lecturers, he delivers extensive doctrinal discourses. While the Synoptics represent him as encountering Scribes and Pharisees, and also Sadducees on one or two occasions, this writer recognizes only Jews, and is not mindful that Sadducees even exist. This indicates a later period for the origin of this Gospel. The apostle John has always been reckoned as of the same group and party as Peter and James, to whom the teachings of Paul were distasteful, but the sentiments elucidated in his Gospel appear to harmonize with those of the Epistles. It was not, however, the fishermen of Galilee who converted the Grecian and Roman world. This victory, so far as it was a victory, was achieved only when men of erudition and executive ability enlisted in its behalf. When the force of their thought was added to the new faith, it became ready to go forth, like the rider on the white horse depicted in the Apocalypse, conquering and to conquer. (The Word, vol. 7, August, 1908) ---------------

The First of the Gospels - Alexander Wilder

"That which the divinely-inspired Power in man has revealed is a Revelation unto us." - S. F. Dunlap. Often it is not easy to distinguish historic verity from legend and tradition. What is marvelous becomes invested with a glamour of venerableness and even of sacredness as it grows old. Where myth and miracle constitute part of the statement, much is left to be conjectured. It will hardly do in such case to set all aside as sheer fabrication, for if somewhat of fact had not existed from which these extraordinary relations took form originally, they would not have come into existence at all. We may apply this rule to the extravagant stories of ancient classic literature, and it should be extended with equal candor to religious narrative. While we are careful in regard to what we accept, it behooves us to be strictly conscientious in relation to what we would exclude. This is alike a question of justice to ourselves and to those whom we may influence, and to others who may be accountable as authors and promulgators. More is required than mere scientific criticism. That is too arbitrary and technical, too far from what is vital and discerning. There is a ken, a faculty of mind which transcends the reasoning powers, by which many of the more important questions may be more satisfactorily solved. Much that may not be explainable to limited knowledge becomes often easier when more has been learned, and of such matters we shall take account. Of that faculty which is superior we may receive much and even vast advantage, but it is never to be made a matter for boasting. In the perusal of the Canonical Scriptures we are to be guided by the same principles. We shall, so far as lies in our power, depolarize them, removing from the imagination every notion of sacredness which would exalt them beyond questioning. As literary compositions they are open to criticism like other publications, in relation to genuineness, authenticity and truthfulness of statement. They were the productions of authors who lived at periods widely apart from each other, under divergent social conditions, and entertaining different convictions. They likewise bear the marks of having undergone verbal changes at the hands of copyists and editors, interpolations and perhaps even the eliminating of important statements. Such practices were common in former periods and do not appear to have been regarded as seriously objectionable. These facts lead the writer to somewhat of hesitation even when feeling very certain of the accurateness of which he affirms. The beginnings of Christianity are involved accordingly in much of this perplexity. In the accounts which we possess, there is indefiniteness in regard to dates, and uncertainty likewise in many of the traditions on which the historic narratives are based. The records now existing of occurrences in the first century of the present era will hardly bear the test of critical scrutiny. As we know concerning Gautama chiefly from the development of Buddhism, so the strongest evidence of Christianity at that period is afforded by its existence. The Canonical writings generally known as the "New Testament"

contain the accepted version of its history and characteristic doctrines. Perhaps these will appear more clearly defined as to their scope and purpose when we recall to recollection the circumstances under which they were promulgated. The Roman dominion extended over the whole region of Western Asia, and was felt to be oppressive by the subject populations. Nowhere was this condition more acutely felt than by the Jewish people. Their history and traditions abounded with instances in which their ancestors had been subjected by an alien despotism, and a chieftain had come to their aid. They were now cherishing the expectation that a new leader like Judas Maccabaeus would arise for their deliverance. Hence their enthusiasm when John the Baptist appeared at the river Jordan and proclaimed "the Kingdom of the Heavens at hand." Recognizing themselves as the "elect," whom God had chosen in preference to other nations, they were ready to consider it a message specifically to themselves. John was a priest like the Maccabee brothers, who had formerly achieved their national independence, and they accounted him a prophet - a man inspired of heaven. "And the people were in expectation, and all men mused in their hearts of John whether he was the Christ or not."* So general was the confidence, it is represented, that "Jerusalem and Judea, and all the region about Jordan" flocked to him to be included among his followers. This would be certain to attract attention, and we read that Herod, the tetrarch, soon afterward cast him into prison. Directly after this Jesus began to make the same proclamation in Galilee. He was engaged in this manner when Herod executed his prisoner.** Word was carried to Jesus, warning him that he was in similar peril. "Then came certain Pharisees, saying: 'Get thee out and depart hence, for Herod desires to kill thee!'" The caution was heeded and Jesus went away privately to a "desert place." But the popular indignation at the execution of John appears to have checked any further violent procedure. ----------* Gospel according to Luke iii, 15. ** The story of how he was led to do this is hardly credible. Royal women did not dance. ----------The apostles themselves whom Jesus instructed appear to have always believed that the coming of the "Kingdom of God" signified the rehabilitation of the Jewish nationality. Hence, as they were journeying with him to Jerusalem, they were eager to ascertain the rank which they would hold when he should be enthroned. The entry into Jerusalem is also described after the manner of a conqueror, or at least of a royal procession. It is equally difficult to comprehend why there was not an uprising of the populace to place him in sovereign power, or else why the participants in the demonstration were not punished severely for their temerity. Perhaps, the description, as is very common in Oriental compositions, was exaggerated.* ----------* It has been suggested that the whole story of Jesus was made up from the current mythologies, particularly in its astronomical features. The date of his birth, the twenty-fifth of December, was the fabled birth-day of the Sun-God, from which period the days in the northern hemisphere begin to become longer. His habitual association with twelve apostles

corresponds with the apportioning of the year into twelve months, the last of which, like Judas Iscariot, expends their substance for necessaries and delivers the Divine Master to the death of the year completed at the vernal equinox. Thus the Christ is crucified when the sun following in the ecliptic comes to the point where it crosses the equator. So many of the festivals and other observances now engrafted upon Christian usage were adopted from the other worships that they afford plausibility to such suppositions. In India there is a legend of Sali-Vahana (the cross-bearer), and an era closely corresponding to the one now employed by Europeans as "Christian." -----------The collection now included in the "New Testament" gives what information we possess respecting the earlier history of Christianity. Unfortunately, there is no connected narrative, and it is far from easy to get over the discrepancies of the various writers. Not till the Second Century was well under way are we able to ascertain many things of grave importance with reasonable approach to definiteness. The principal literary productions relating to the subject were the epistles of Paul, the Catholic Epistles, the anonymous Letter to the Hebrews and the Apocalypse. They do not appear to have been regarded as being the compositions of men who were working in harmony. The apostles and their adherents had made Jerusalem their headquarters till its destruction, and had not separated from the Jewish body and customs, while those of other nationalities regarded Antioch as their principal center of influence. Besides these, there were the Gnostic believers of Alexandria and Ephesus who taught that the Christ was a superhuman being, and intermingled the lore of India and Persia with philosophy as a part of their various systems. Paul appears to have been prominent at an early period in the community of believers at Antioch. His reputed birthplace was at Tarsus in Cilicia, and he is generally acknowledged to have possessed superior learning, and he wrote with great power. Unfortunately, his epistles have been sadly adulterated by additions from later pens, as well as misconstructions read into what he wrote. Longinus, the Neo-Platonist, classed him among the great men of Greece. He had been known as a persistent adversary, active beyond measure, even undertaking a commission from the high priest to Damascus to uproot the new heresy there. But his sentiments underwent a radical change which he described as a revelation from Heaven. He was of a nervous temperament and vividly susceptible to influences of an entheast character. This change in his views was too overwhelming to permit of hasty action. He must yield all former ambitions and surrender every advantage which he had obtained from his zeal and proficiency in Rabbinical learning. What this all implied can be comprehended only by those who have made a similar sacrifice. Where he had been popular he was henceforth to be shunned and hated. He had received a shock through his whole moral and intellectual nature from which he must take time to recover. He was certain of no one to help in the new experience, and did not venture to consult with any one. Instead, he went into Arabia, and after a period of retirement and seclusion, returned to Damascus. Here he remained till the ethnarch under Aretas, the King sought to apprehend him. Undoubtedly his zeal and endeavors to disseminate his new views had brought him into this peril. He made his escape successfully, and soon afterward visited Kephas at Jerusalem. He stayed but a few days, and had no intercourse with others, except with James, "the Lord's brother." He appears

then to have made his home at Antioch. Here the disciples had formed a separate community and for the first time received the designation of "Christians." From this point Paul journeyed over Syria and Asia Minor, everywhere promulgating the new gospel with gratifying success. The communities in Judea only knew of his labors by general report, that he was now laboring to establish the faith which he had before sought to destroy. It does not appear that the apostles at Jerusalem and their fellow laborers had attempted or contemplated a rupture with Judaism. "The Scribes and Pharisees sit in the chair of Moses," were the words of Jesus; "What they command you, that observe and do."* There was no new system of doctrine promulgated, but simply an announcement of the second coming of Jesus to establish anew the kingdom of God. The message as they regarded it was for the elect, the chosen people only, and such as might become converts to Judaism. But Paul in his ministrations had made no distinction of race or nationality. In the various places where he labored there were groups of Jews, some whom had accepted the new faith, but were reluctant to yield to a breaking down of the distinction, race and nationality. The breach finally came. ---------* Gospel according to Matthew, xxiii, 2, 3. ---------Representatives of the stricter Judaism, who visited the community at Antioch, declared it absolutely necessary to conform to the requirements of the Law of Moses. This demand Paul resisted with characteristic vehemence. He denounced them as "False brothers" seeking to bring them into bondage. Finally he went with Barnabas to Jerusalem to find out the views with which his work was regarded. He also took Titus, a member of the community of Antioch, and when it was insisted that he should conform to the Hebrew rites, the demand was stubbornly refused. Paul made known to the leading men in private conference the gospel which he had promulgated, expecting some possible criticism or counsel. On the contrary, they uttered not a word. In consideration of what he had accomplished, and the influence which he had acquired, they were content with acquitting themselves of all participation. They divided the fields of labor. Paul and Barnabas were duly recognized as apostles to the other nations, while they themselves continued as they had been, apostles to the Jews only. The comity or truce thus established, does not appear, however, to have been of long duration. Kephas came to Antioch, and for a time fraternized with the congregation of Christians, living and eating with them as one of their own people. All was going on peacefully when there came others from Jerusalem, from James. Fearing for his standing with his colleagues he at once severed his relations with the community at Antioch, as being impure and alien. The other Jews in that congregation immediately followed his example. Even Barnabas was carried away by their hypocrisy and participated in the movement. He no longer associated with Paul in their labors. Paul quickly perceived this abandoning of the essential doctrine of the gospel which he had promulgated. They were not walking uprightly and he did not scruple to arraign Kephas in presence of the whole assembly for his duplicity. He followed the rebuke by stating anew the point of distinction.

Primitive Christianity was based entirely upon the belief in the literal coming of the Christ from the world beyond to set up his kingdom on the earth. The theme of every writer in the first century was "the Lord at hand." There was little ecclesiastical organization; enthusiasm was the principal bond of union. "The morality of primitive Christianity," Professor Hoffding remarks, "was determined by the ardent awaiting of the second and immediate coming of Christ." It was imagined by the Jewish believers who had been taught by the Pharisees, and were still attendants at the synagogue,* that as they were "God's elect," - the chosen people that they would be the favored, and perhaps the only participants of favor in the new order of things. Hence, the tenacity in insisting that converts from other nationalities must conform to all the requirements of the Law of Moses, or be considered as remaining "sinners," - outside of the favored number. Paul now declared against this doctrine with characteristic vehemence and positiveness of assertion. "We," said he, "we who are Jews by birth and not 'sinners' of the other nations, knowing that a man is never declared just because of having observed the Law, but only through the faith of Christ, we accordingly believed in Christ that we might be declared just through such faith."** This was necessary for the Jew because he was in the same predicament as other men. This, he declared, was not a putting the favor of God out of the matter. If there was justification through the law Christ had died to no purpose. -----------* Epistle of James, ii, 2. ** Epistle to Galatians, ii, 14-16. -----------After this Paul appears to have pursued his labors independently. Taking new companions he made another journey over the districts where he had been before, going through Syria, Cilicia, and the different countries of Asia Minor, and re-establishing Christian assemblies where he went. He also extended his field of operations into Europe, beginning at Philippi in Thrace, and going thence to Thessalonica, Berea, Athens and Corinth. In this way he spent several years laboring with great success. He would make a place his residence, and engage in work at his trade, thus burdening no one with his support. Meanwhile, he took every opportunity to impart his views, till be obtained hearers and disciples. Everywhere he encountered hostility from the Jews, who were scattered in great numbers over the different seaports and marts of commerce. The record of his itinerary appears to have been made by one of the men in his company, and is confirmed to some extent by statements in the epistles bearing his name. These were written during his various journeys and afford the principal light which we possess in relation to the gospel which he promulgated. We find them first enumerated by Marcion, who lived in the Second Century. This writer was the principal champion of the Apostle against the Ebionite party, by whom Paul was proscribed as an imposter, and rejected his teachings. The gospel which he mentions is probably the one which Paul denominated his own. As a distinct work it is not now extant, and our information respecting it must be collated from the Epistles which have been preserved.

The first of these was written to the assembly at Thessalonica, while he was at Athens, waiting for his companions to join him. In it he styles them "followers of us," as having received "our gospel," "the Gospel of God," with which he had been put in trust. He also compares their persecution in Thessalonica to that experienced from the Jews of Judea, who murdered Jesus and their prophets, and forbade from imparting the good message to those of other nationalities, that they likewise might be participants in the coming kingdom of heaven. He now desired to be able to present them blameless on that occasion. He desired them accordingly to live in strict uprightness; to be free from immoral conduct in every form, to abstain from defrauding or overreaching a brother, to live quietly, to mind their own affairs, to work with their hands, to deal honorably with others, and to be in lack of nothing. It was a mode of living from day to day for a brief time that he prescribed. The apostle did not contemplate a period extending through decades of centuries. It was this consideration which led Paul in a later Epistle to declare it better, to refrain from marrying, to abstain from giving daughters in marriage, or to engage in other movements of the time, or even for slaves to desire freedom. "The morality of primitive Christianity was determined," Professor Hoffding declares, "by the ardent awaiting of the second and immediate coming of Jesus." This event is briefly described by the apostle as a manifestation in the sky and a resurrection. "We who are alive and remain at the coming of the Lord," he declared, "will not forestall those who are sleeping." Those dead in Christ would arise and appear with him, and those still living would be caught up in company with them to meet the Lord in the air, to be always with him. It may not be amiss to remark, that despite the apparent literalness of this description, Paul can hardly be understood as treating of any rehabilitation of the physical body. He declared in so many words that "flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, neither doth corruption inherit incorruption." In the second Epistle to Timothy, mention is also made that certain persons had taught that the resurrection had already taken place. This could not have been credited, except that in like manner as Jesus described the Kingdom of God, it does not come in a manner to be observed in the external world.* ---------* Gospel according to Luke, xvii, 20, 21. ---------So great agitation appears to have been created in the Thessalonican assembly, that a second letter was written. The day would not come, the apostle assured them, unless that a great apostacy would first take place, and great activity of the Lawless Man, exalting himself even above God. The animosity against the apostle continued to manifest itself. When Paul was at Corinth he learned of a great defection of his converts in Galatia. They had attached themselves to him with characteristic Keltic enthusiasm and now were adopting the tenets and rituals of Judaism with similar zeal. He wrote them a letter setting forth his claims to their loyalty, and remonstrating with them for their desertion. They had accepted a different Gospel, he remarked, yet it was not really another, but only a perverting of the Gospel of Christ. The Gospel which he promulgated was not invented by a man. He had not received it by a human being, nor been taught it, but it had been made known to him

directly by Jesus Christ. God had revealed his Son in him, that he might proclaim Him in the different nations. As they had been reckoned as enemies, having no part in the matter, this condition was now removed. His was a ministry of reconciliation; there was henceforth neither Jew nor Greek, neither bond nor free, neither male nor female, one having advantage beyond another. They were all at one; this was the atonement. There was no vicarious sacrifice, or punishing of the innocent instead of the guilty. This was his Gospel as superior to the notions extant at Jerusalem. At Corinth, which was famous for commerce and luxury, the converts were generally of the humbler population. Paul had met with great favor there and remained many months. He learned now that conflict had appeared among them. There was a party of Paul, another of Apollos, another of Kephas, and another of Christ. "Has Christ been apportioned?" he asks. "Was Christ crucified in your behalf, or were you baptized in his name?" He was glad, he declared, that he had baptized but a few individuals. Christ did not commission him to baptize, but only to preach. The apostle evidently regarded both baptism and circumcision as Jewish usages, to be complied with when external conditions might make it seem expedient, but obligatory on no one. Jesus himself did not baptize, though the disciples did. Paul accordingly states the conditions under which he was laboring. "Since the Jews ask signs which they can apprehend, the Greeks seek philosophic learning, we proclaim a crucified Christ, to the Jews a scandal, to the Greeks an absolute folly, but to those who are called, whether Jews or Greeks, the Divine power and wisdom." He insisted with great positiveness that the Christian congregation at Corinth was a structure, of which he, as architect, had laid the foundation upon which another was then building. "Now," he declares, "Although you have a thousand schoolmasters, yet you have not many fathers in Christ, for I have begotten you all through the gospel. I beseech you accordingly, become imitators of me. For this reason I have sent Timothy to you, who will bring you to recollection of my ways in Christ." There are also intimations of esoteric as well as literal instruction. "We speak wisdom among the perfect," he writes; "We speak the occult divine wisdom in a mystery, not in the learned words of human wisdom, but in those of the spirit. The psychic man does not receive things of the spirit, and cannot cognize them because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual discerneth every thing; ....and I could not speak with you as spiritual, but as carnal, as being only young children in Christ." He then refers to the partisanship among them as evidence of this infantile condition. The Epistle to the Romans contains an elaborate statement of the whole question. Paul describes himself as an apostle who had been specially set apart to the Gospel, to proclaim it to all classes of mankind without discrimination. His service was due alike to the Greek, the barbarian, the cultured and the illiterate. All alike are to receive the record of their deeds, "in the day," he affirms, "that, according to my Gospel, God shall judge the secret acts of all men." To this period, he explains, the Jews had enjoyed the advantage of having had the first opportunity. They were inimical now because the Gospel had been extended to others, yet because of their election, because they had been the chosen people, they were still esteemed accordingly. Nevertheless, the real advantage was in the intrinsic character. The Jew is not a Jew because he is so openly, but because he is one in his interior private life.

In this Epistle, Paul mentions that he was going to Jerusalem with a liberal contribution from the Gentile congregations to the brethren there, and trusted that the offerings would be acceptable. This was probably the journey described in the "Acts of the Apostles." If this account is proximately correct, he met with bitter disappointment. He was taken from the temple by a mob of Jews and only rescued by the prompt action of the commander of the Roman garrison. While detained in custody, and accusations were manufactured against him, no effort was made, in his behalf. We are told that when Peter lay in prison awaiting execution; "prayer was made without ceasing, by the church unto God for him." But Paul was held a prisoner for years, and received no attention, except to discredit his work. The Epistle of James was a declaration against the doctrine of faith. In the second Epistle to Timothy there is found the significant statements: "All Asia is turned against me," and a careful perusal of the Letters in the Apocalypse to the "Angels of the seven churches in Asia" will reveal a covert assailing of Paul by whom the congregations had been originally collected. The apostacy came. The controversies continued into the Second Century with all their bitterness. There had also another element been introduced. The Gnostics of Alexandria had blended together a system, or a variety of systems, in which the Magian and Indian learning was combined with Judean and Christian teachings. "Genealogies" representing the Divine Potencies were constructed, and the beliefs current in the recent centuries engrafted upon them. The Gnostics, as they are now generally denominated, rejected the authority of the Jewish Scriptures, and taught that the Christ was a superhuman being, the offspring of Achamoth, the Potency of Wisdom; and it is recorded that Apollos, who was an Alexandrian Jew, taught at Ephesus that Jesus was the Christ. This may account for the sensitiveness of Paul in regard to the superstructure which Apollos had been building at Corinth upon the foundation which he himself had laid when teaching there, which induced him to send Timothy to make all right. In the Second Century the Gnostic doctrine was prevalent over Asia Minor, Syria and Egypt. At Alexandria, the divinity Serapis, was revered as the Supreme Being, and Christ as his manifestation in the earth. In older Egypt, when every city had a tutelar deity or triad peculiar to itself, a man was sometimes a priest in different divinities. The Emperor Hadrian observed a similar syncretism at Alexandria - that the Christian bishops were also priests of Serapis, the Patriarch himself worshipping Serapis and Christ. There was but the One God for them all, the Emperor remarked; him the Christians, him the Jews, him the other population worshiped. During the last years of the reign of Hadrian, the Jews, dropping their prejudices against other nations, made a final effort, aided by Samaritans and neighboring peoples, to gain independence. The Christian communities that did not participate in the movement were severely persecuted. After the overthrow of the ephemeral government of Barcochba in 135, there appears to have been an extensive change of religious conditions. The golden period of the Antonines followed over the Roman world. We now read of various gospels, most of which have since passed out of existence. None of these were regarded as other than religious compositions, with no quality of divine inspiration or infallibility of the text attached to them. In fact the Gospels and Epistles have been written over several times; and as current opinions changed their language has been modified, sometimes added to here and there till it surpasses human ability to distinguish with positive certainty

the original matter from the additions and alterations. Finally, as Dr. Aked aptly states the fact: "Men decided which books were 'Bible,' and which were not." The Gospel which Paul proclaimed among the nations does not appear in the accredited number. We are left to gather up what we can from the Epistles. We have noted already that its leading feature, the one obnoxious to the Jews and Jewish believers, was the admission of the other nations to equal participation when the Kingdom of God should be established. While he admitted that it was a great advantage to the Jew that he first had "the oracles of God," he insisted that others, without conforming to the rites and usages of the Law of Moses, would by their faith obtain equal benefit. Zealous as Paul was in teaching this doctrine he by no means inculcated that this was all. He taught Christ crucified, but also that he had risen from among the dead, and he firmly believed that he had himself seen him. Yet he perceived truth that was veiled in symbol and parable. He described the story of Abraham, his wives and sons, as allegoric, and represented the legend of the Israelites crossing the sea as types or figures of speech. The real death he taught was to die to sin, and that to rise with Christ was to live to God unselfishly. He knew an esoteric wisdom which he spoke among the perfect, those who had been duly initiated, but he tells the Corinthians that they were not able to be in it because of their infantile condition of mind. Yet in the same Epistle he sets forth what may be considered his sublimest teaching. He enumerates the requirements and attainments as shown by Jesus and the apostles the gift of tongues, prophecy, esoteric knowledge, faith that would remove mountains, the bestowment of goods to the poor and the bodily sacrifice even to burning. All these, he urgently declares, assure no real profit except there be charity. They will all fade and come short. For charity suffers patiently, is kind, he declares; is not jealous, it is not proud, it does not act improperly, it is not eager or grasping after what may be owned, it is not irritable, it does not think evilly, it takes no delight in injustice, but delights in the true and good; it sustains everything, believes everything, hopes everything, endures everything. It never fails." Everything else comes short, is incomplete. Knowing is but in part, prophecy is but in part. "When I was a child," says he, "I talked as a child, I understood as a child, I reasoned as a child, but when I became a man I put away the things of the child; for we behold in enigma as in a mirror, but then it is face to face." Faith, hope and charity, the three superior graces remain, but the greatest is charity, the loving of the neighbor and regarding his welfare in preference to our own. This is the copestone of the building; all that law can require; the higher law in which every duty is merged, and by which every desire has its fruition. (The Word, vol. 8, Feb., March, 1909) ------------

THE APOSTLE PAUL By Alexander Wilder, M.D. WHEN we accept the historic account of the origin and early promulgation of the Christian faith, we are required by consistency to ascribe its early promulgation chiefly to

the apostle Paul. His Epistle to his disciples in Galatia is the oldest record which we possess of all the booklets of the New Testament, and the statements which are there made are positive and unequivocal. The Gospel which had been proclaimed by him, he affirms, was not by any human authorization. He did not receive it nor was he taught it by a man, but only by revelation of Jesus Christ. He is very strenuous accordingly in regard to its absolute genuineness. He will compromise nothing. What others were teaching was not the true doctrine. They were creating agitation and actually desiring to transform the gospel itself. "But," says he, "if we or an angel out from heaven teach a gospel different from what has been proclaimed to you, let him be anathema. As we have said before I now say again. If any one proclaims to you a gospel other than what you have already received let him be anathema." He was not seeking to obtain the approbation of anybody. That would be virtual apostasy. He does not, however, claim to have been a pioneer apostle. There were those, he acknowledges, who were apostles before him. They, however, had made no schism or faction in the Jewish religion. But they assembled weekly in the synagogue, they worshiped in the temple at Jerusalem and continued Jews in every sense of the term. James the Just, the head of the congregation, is mentioned by the Rabbi Eliezar ben Hyrkainus as "a man of KepharSekania, one of the pupils of Jesus of Nazareth." He and his associates believed, as did other Israelites, in the obligatory character of the Law of Moses and adhered tenaciously to the technical ceremonies. Indeed, it is apparent that neither Jesus nor the apostles had ever planned to establish a sect apart from orthodox Judaism. The Gospels, it is true, contain many accounts of disputes between Jesus and the Jewish teachers, "the Scribes and Pharisees," but unless where the contrary is expressed, these disputes are hardly conclusive evidence of ill will. They were of frequent occurrence between rival teachers, and the presuming of profound animosity is rather far-fetched. There is no protest anywhere in the synoptic Gospels against Judaism itself, but an averment that the new evangel was to "the household of Israel" in preference to every other people. The denunciations which have been recorded as spoken by Jesus, are made against distorted interpretations of the precepts of the Law, and also the "traditions of the Elders," which, it was declared, actually annulled the whole authority of the commandment.* Hence Jesus is described as sanctioning their instructions, but disapproving their habitual conduct. "For they say and do not," he alleges; "they strain out the gnat and swallow the camel." Hence he styles them hypocrites or actors, who represent persons in a drama, but do nothing themselves which the drama signifies. Nevertheless, Josephus has imputed amiable characteristics to the Pharisees, as possessing a philosophic disposition, gentle and averse to severity in judicial administration. In all these respects they differed from the Saddueees, who constituted the nobility, including the priests and Levites and were domineering, arrogant, greedy of power and cruel.** While diligently attentive to the ceremonial forms of public worship, they ignored belief in a future state, or the existence of spiritual beings. There appear to have been two quite distinct parties among the Pharisees, the Zealots, followers of Shammai, and the disciples of Hillel. There were those also who were held in high esteem by Herod. It is probable that by having these distinctions in mind we will obtain correcter views of the statements in the Gospels. While Jesus is represented as freely criticising and even denouncing the Scribes and Pharisees, many of the important

utterances accredited to him in the "Sermon on the Mount" and elsewhere, are to be found, sometimes almost literally in the writings and utterances of the Rabbis. -----------* Mishits Sanhedrin, xi. 5: "The words of the Scribes are more beloved than the words of the Law." Talmud Yerushalmi, vi, 6: "The words of the Elders must be observed more strictly than the words of the Prophets." ** Probably deriving their designation from Simeon Zadok or Simon the Just, the high priest in the reign of the earlier Ptolemie, who rebuilt the wall of Jerusalem, and restored public worship. See Acts vi. 7. -----------The Rev. Doctor T. M. Wise, in his treatise on the early history of Christianity, states that the apostles, several years after the death of Jesus, returned from Galilee and established a Sanhedrin among themselves over which Peter and John, and afterward James the Just, presided. The scholastic anarchy that prevailed among the Jews had so weakened the authority of the existing body as to render such action a matter of little difficulty. His authority for this statement is not known to the writer, but he was a thorough scholar, and of indisputable veracity. The apostle Paul was never an agent of the disciples at Jerusalem. His history as given by himself to the Galatians we must consider to be the most authentic. He was originally a zealous advocate of Judaism, and especially of its traditions. In the speeches attributed to him, he declares that he was a pupil of Gamaliel, the son of Hillel, and himself a Zealot and Pharisee. "I persecuted the church of God beyond all moderation," he confesses. His change of views was caused, he declares, by the revelation of Jesus Christ. God had separated him from his birth, and called him. When, therefore, God had revealed his Son in him in order that he should proclaim him among the different peoples, he did not take a human being into counsel over the matter, nor go up to Jerusalem to the apostles, but went into Arabia, and came back to Damascus, thus passing three years. Then he went to Jerusalem to communicate with Kephas, seeing no one else but James, the brother of Jesus. After this he spent some time in Syria and his native country in Cilicia. It was then, we are told in the later narrative, that he was brought by Barnabas from home to Antioch. Stephen had been put to death at Jerusalem, by authority of the High Priest and Sanhedrin. He had proclaimed a more liberal and exalted view of religious matters than was allowed. Directly afterward followed a persecution of those who cherished his sentiments, who, indeed, were of the Greek-speaking Jews from other countries. They left Jerusalem and hurried home where they proclaimed their new belief. In this way, it is related, there was a large community of disciples established at Antioch. Paul was willing to receive them without regard to nationality or conformity to Jewish customs. Here his disciples, we are told, first received the designation of Christians. They were recognized as a distinct company from the population around them. Antioch had been the metropolis of the Asian dominion and was still a centre of influence socially and intellectually. It was also a focus of religious influence. Barnabas and Paul afterward

became its apostles or missionaries to promulgate the new doctrine over Asia Minor and the West. Alexandria appears to have been a distinct field of which little has been preserved. Its school and library had served the purposes of a World's university, and teachers as well as pupils had resorted to it from all regions. The Oriental Theosophy was engrafted on current doctrinal systems, and the result was the development of composite schools of various shades of opinion designated the Gnosis or Superior knowledge. The Jewish influence is vividly perceptible and we find the Wisdom literature appearing in the presentation of the Logos under the several characteristics of Creator, Redeemer, and the Christ; the whole being curiously interwrought in a complex genealogy. There are widely varying accounts of the antagonism which existed between Paul and the leading men at Jerusalem. The narrative of the Acts of the Apostles was evidently written at a later period when it was desired to efface the remembrance of the matter. It states that Paul and Barnabas had made their tour through Asia minor, founding congregations and providing for their orderly administration, and were engaged as before at Antioch. Here their work was interrupted by teachers from Judea who demanded strict conforming to the law of Moses, as was required of other converts to Judaism. Neither Paul nor Barnabas would accede to this, and went with a delegation to Jerusalem for a final decision. The result was a compromise, the only requirement described by the writer being the utter rejection of certain pagan customs and practices. Paul describes this journey to Jerusalem as having been made after fourteen years of missionary service. He was not without apprehension in regard to the acceptableness of his work, and first of all showed the leading men in a private interview the Gospel which he had been promulgating. But this by no means exempted him from unfriendly controversy. There were "false brethren," Pharisees, who came stealthily to pry into the matter and subject the foreign converts to Jewish usages. "We did not give up our ground to them by submission or compromise, not even an hour," Paul declares. Meanwhile, those to whom he had confided his Gospel, made no criticism or consequence. On the contrary, observing the condition of matters with the non-Judean believers, they simply conceded that Paul and Barnabas might be apostles in that field, while they themselves remained with the believers who still adhered to Judaic usages. They only stipulated that the "poor," the Ebionites of Jerusalem, should be remembered, which Paul was forward to promise. This agreement, however, he describes as only putting off the inevitable clash. Kephas paid a visit to Antioch, and for a time associated with the Christians there as one of their number, eating with them without question. But others coming from James, he was afraid and separated from them. The rest of the Jews in the congregation also withdrew from association with their fellow-believers, and even Barnabas was swayed by their example and carried away by the same hypocrisy. From that time he ceased to be a fellow-laborer in the new movement. But Paul never regained the lost influence. Paul, thus deserted, did not hesitate to berate Kephas before them all. "I withstand him to the face," says he, "because he was in the wrong." First he challenged him for his double dealing, and, he then repudiated the Law as a means for the development of the higher life; declaring that if righteousness could be produced by it, the ministry of Jesus had been unnecessary. The few writings which may be attributed to the first century seem to accentuate this controversy. In the Apocalypse there is repeated mention of a teaching that it was lawful

to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to take part in gross pagan rites. Those also are alluded to, but not named, "which say that they are apostles, and are not." Paul also on his part denounced certain individuals as "false apostles, deceitful workers transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ, as Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light." Perhaps in this expression he meant Apollos who had come from the Gnostic schools of Alexandria and was distasteful to him; but it is more probable that he referred to his antagonists at Jerusalem. The writings of Paul and James set forth the ground of division. In the Epistle to the Romans, Paul has asserted that "a man is justified by faith and not by the works of the Law," and James has responded in a Catholic Epistle addressed to "The Twelve Tribes scattered Abroad" that the Law was inviolable, "whosoever offended in one point is guilty of all, and that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only." The Ebionites denounced Paul unequivocally as an imposter. They affirmed that he had sought to marry a Jewish lady of noble family, and that his reported conversion was entirely due to that matter. Finding that his suit was unavailing, he turned against the Jews and became hostile to their religious beliefs and observances. This made him obnoxious to the members of the priesthood as well as to others of Jewish lineage. Paul himself based his claim of independent apostleship upon direct authority from Jesus Christ. He describes this manifestation. Writing to the Corinthians he says of himself: "It is not becoming to boast, but I will pass to visions and revelations. I knew a man in Christ, it was fourteen years ago, whether in the body I know not or out of the body I do not know; such a one was rapt to the third heaven. And I know that such a man, whether in the body or without the body I do not know, God knows, that he was rapt into paradise and heard things ineffable which it is not lawful for a man to utter familiarly." This reads like an account of one of the epoptic visions in the Initiations. Dr. Wise gives an account from the Talmud, which he seems to think relates to an occurrence of similar character. "Four men went into Paradise, Ben Azai saw and became insane. Ben Zioma saw and died. Aher saw and cut the scions. Akiba went in and came out in peace." In the person of Aher we are instructed to recognize the Apostle Paul. He appears to have been known by a variety of appellations. He was named Saul, as if in allusion to this vision of Paradise, Saul, or Sheal, being the Hebrew name for the other world. Paul, which only means "little man," seems like a species of nickname. Aher, or "other," was an epithet for persons not of Jewish ancestry or sympathy, and would appear to have been applied to him for having extended his labors to non-Judean populations. His real name, the Doctor intimates, was Elisha ben Abuah. The "scions" which he is represented as having cut in Paradise were doctrines from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. In the words of Haya ben Sharira of the Rabbinic College of Pumpadita: "Aher cut the scions - erred, went astray, became an apostate and heretic." This, it would be manifest from Jewish authority, was the "revelations" which he received as his commission of apostleship. The Midrash explains it further. When Paul or Aher saw the vision of Paradise he beheld the "angel of the presence" whom the Rabbis denominate the Metathron, sitting instead of standing. At once he took this as positive evidence that this holy being was likewise a sovereign power, - the Son of God who ruled over all things, except God himself. It will be borne in mind that in all his teaching Paul declared that he had laid Christ as the foundation for the superstructure of his doctrine. He recognized him as having risen

from the dead a spiritual body arising from the decaying corporeal framework, as a plant from the seed which is sown to produce it. He was a genuine apostle, he insists accordingly, having "seen the Lord." In the Epistles of Paul we undoubtedly have the accurate account of his adoption of the new doctrine. Leaving Damascus, he went southward into Arabia. This region was at that period famous for its religious communities. The Essenes, according to Pliny, had dwelt in the neighborhood of the Dead Sea for innumerable centuries. John the Baptist seems like one of that people. The Ebionites and Nazarenes from Jerusalem are said to have repaired to the Perea when invading armies threatened Judea; and it is also stated that Jerome obtained from them the arcane or secret work which he rendered in new form as the Gospel according to Matthew. The Kenites or Sacred Scribes also dwelt in Arabia. Moses is recorded as having married into their tribe, and both he and Elijah the prophet, we are told, had audience with God, or, in other words, received initiation at Horeb, a cave or sanctuary in Mount Sinai. Jesus himself is described as passing much time in Arabia, perhaps among the Nabateans. Paul, spending three years in this region, had opportunity to perfect his religious studies without resorting to Jerusalem. He never hesitated to set his claims as high as those of prophets or hierophants. "We speak wisdom hidden in a Mystery," he writes to the Corinthians, "which none of the rulers of this world knew" - in other words, which was superior to the epopteia or Beholdings of the Eleusinian, Bacchic or Mithraic revelations. "The psychic man," prizing only sensuous manifestations did not receive it, because it was too fanciful and visionary, but the spiritual man cognized it all; "for," he remarks, "we have the mind (or spiritual perception) of Christ." Finally, as though this was not enough in the way of setting aside the authority of Apollos and the Alexandrian Gnosis, he writes further: "If any man think himself to be a prophet or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things which I am writing to you are the commandments of the Lord." Paul, "as touching the Law, a Pharisee," exceeded in conception the scope of view and action contemplated by the most accomplished Rabbi. The Golden Maxim of Hillel, the Golden Rule of Jesus, was with him a matter to be realized - at once a bridge between Jew and Gentile, and from man to God. Casting aside the exclusiveness cherished by the Zealots of Judea, and discarding the narrow views of James and the Ebionites of Jerusalem, he marked out his own career without respect to creed, sect or people, and included the whole human family in his field of operation. He contemplated what had never been attempted before him, the demolishing of the entire fabric of Phrygian, Grecian and Roman worship. He understood his age; he stood upon its summit and adopted means the most available to carry out his purpose. One God, one law of action, one destiny for all mankind, comprised the whole of his evangel. We have no trustworthy record of his death. Ecclesiastical fable has made him a victim of the cruelty of Nero. The statement in the second Epistle to Timothy has been supposed accordingly to refer to such an event: "I am now being worn out and the time of my dissolution is near." But no historian or annalist has told of his end. Rabbinical records, it is said, relate that he lived to a good old age and died in quiet. Mention is also made of his daughters, of the desertion of his followers and of the hostility of the other apostles; and admiration is expressed of his learning and other excellencies. Indeed, to the present day, intelligent Jews praise the great Apostle.

It appears evident, however, that his peculiar teachings fell into discredit about the time of his Epistles. "All they which are in Asia he turned away from me," is recorded in the second Epistle to Timothy; "No man stood with me, but all forsook me." He exhibits much irritation at such unfaithfulness. He had been followed at Ephesus and to Corinth by Apollos, a Jew from Alexandria, who seems to have taught the Gnostic doctrines of the Logos, incorporating it with the gospel of Paul - "showing by the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christos." As a result there sprung up factions: every one declaring himself as of the party of Paul, or Apollos, or Kephas or Christ. "I have begotten you through the Gospel," he declares, "be ye followers of me." To the Galatians, he had been even more severe. "It is not another gospel, but there are some who are disturbing you," he writes; "I would that they were made emasculate." With him the issues were plain. The Jews required a definite symbol or token, and Greeks demanded intelligent reasoning. They sought after philosophic wisdom, but he promulgated rightly, meeting both requirements: "Christ the power of God and the Wisdom of God." The Christ of Paul has constituted an enigma which has never been quite easy to solve. He was something else than the Jesus of the Gospels. Paul disregarded utterly the "endless genealogies," which were characteristic of the Gnostic writings. The author of the Fourth Gospel, describes Jesus as what would now be termed a "materialized" divine spirit. He was the Logos, or First Emanation - "at the beginning adnate to God," divine and yet incarnated as a human being. The "mother of Jesus," like the princess Semele had given birth, we are told, not to a love-child, but to an offspring that was very God. No Jew of whatever sect, no apostle, no earlier believer of the Gospel, ever promulgated such an idea. Nevertheless, Paul himself always seems to treat of Christ as a personage rather than as a person. In a manner somewhat analogous, the Sacred lessons of the Secret assemblies often personified the divine Good and the Divine Truth in a human form, assailed by the passions and appetites, but superior to them; and this doctrine, emerging from the crypt, has been apprehended by churchlings and gross-minded individuals as that of immaculate conception and divine incarnation. The hypothesis of the end of the world and attending judgment which was kept in mind by the apostolic writers, must without doubt be treated hermeneutically. It was in keeping with the doctrines of cycles, which was part of the ancient secret learning. Its mythic meaning is disclosed in the following passage: "If any man is in Christ he is a new creature; old things have passed away, all things have become new, and are all of God." It is very probable that this is the key to all the references to judgment and the coming or becoming present of the Lord. Paul believed that the Jesus whom he saw was the spiritual essence apart from the body, as "flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor that which is corruptible inherit incorruption." The Lord he declares to be "spirit" and whoever was "in him" had risen or ascended to the evolution of the spiritual nature, faculties and conditions. He was in the anastasis, the resurrection or future life; he was "dead and freed from sin," and so although while as to the external and psychical nature he might abide in the world, he had, in his interior being, passed into eternity. The Gospel of Paul exhibits, in very many respects, a remarkable similarity to the sublimer doctrines of Plato. Living in different ages and with different peoples, their language and mode of expression are somewhat diverse. But no one who is familiar with

the expositions of the philosopher concerning the nous or interior mind, divine alike in God and man, and the agathon or Supreme Good, which is the all of life, can long be unable to recognize the teachings of the great apostle concerning the spirit or inner self, by which God and man are at one, and love or charity, the justice or righteousness which transcends all and at the same time embraces all. We need not care for the petty criticisms of those who have failed to measure the great apostle. He was not a man of common ability. He was superior to his time, and even his own people were compelled to acknowledge his greatness. Inside his world he would have no Jew or Greek, as such. By faith, fidelity to intelligent conviction, both were alike children of the Light. Great, energetic and resolute, he boldly asserted the doctrines of One God and a pure life. Every prejudice and partition-wall in the way of their acceptance, he beat to the ground. Plato had not scrupled to forbid the tales of Homer in his ideal commonwealth; and Paul emulated him in discarding every teacher, system or custom which restricted the human mind, or tended to hide from it the sublime ideal. The fame of the great Christian luminary arose anew in Christendom, and his doctrines, modified by many unfortunate adulterations, have been proclaimed through the world. It supplanted the rival Ebionism, but in its turn amalgamated with other current notions. Hence modern Christianity can hardly be said to be strictly identical with the doctrine and mode of life promulgated by Paul. It lacks his breadth of view, his earnestness, his keen spiritual perception. Bearing the impress of the several nations professing it, exhibiting as many forms as there are races, it may be similar in Italy and Spain, but it differs widely in England, France, Germany, Russia, Armenia, and Abyssinia. As compared with preceding worships, the change from one to the other seems often to have been more in name than in genius. Men had gone to bed at night pagans and awoke in the morning pursuant to law, Christians. As for the Sermon on the Mount and other teachings of Jesus, the conspicuous doctrines are more or less repudiated by every Christian community of any considerable dimensions. Barbarism, oppression and cruel punishments are as common as in the days of paganism. Yet the humanizing leaven is fermenting, and despite the usual railing against sentimentality, which is so often launched against individuals of conviction, we may continue to hope that when mankind shall become enlightened, or the barbarous races and families are supplanted by those of nobler nature and instincts, the ideal excellencies may become realities. "This is undeniable," says Doctor Hookyaas: "that the victory of the Gospel over the heathen world is mainly due to the power and the gifts of Paul, with his insignificant person, but his mighty spirit, with his zeal and inspiration, his elasticity and perseverance, his unconditional surrender to his work. It was he whose marvelous power and intensity of soul and utter self-sacrifice severed Christianity from the Synagogue when without him it would have remained an insignificant or forgotten Jewish sect; it was he who worked it into a new principle of life and a new system of religion, who proclaimed and established it in two continents with a courage, an energy, and a perseverance that have never been surpassed. In a word, Christianity and, therefore, humanity owe an inestimable debt to Paul: and except Jesus, we know of no human being who has won and who still retains, after so many ages, an influence like his." (The Word, vol. 7, September, 1908)

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SPIRITUALITY AND OCCULTISM

THE SPECTATOR OF THE MYSTERIES - Alexander Wilder "Who knows himself knows all things in himself." - Picus Mirandula Professor Tyndall conjectures that the main office of religion in its future form may possibly be to purify, elevate, and brighten the life that now is, instead of treating it as the more or less dismal vestibule of a life that is to come. Perhaps we need have little controversy with this sentiment, yet it seems to have a strong flavor of disregard for the facts which constitute the genuine realities of existence. There can be little for the present life but sensuous and bestial attractions and enjoyments, except we may consider it as a school and theater of exercise, with regard to the adult stage that lies beyond. It is well for children at their lessons to concern themselves with performing well the tasks at which they are engaged, rather than to be incessantly speculating upon the utility and influence of this and that science or study in the coming period of life. The discharge of our relations to family, neighbors, and society at large, is properly the business of us all. We are not obligated to trouble ourselves much about our future existence till the time approaches for us to assume its conditions. Our best preparation for it consists in the faithful performance of whatever we have to do. It is nobler to confide in the Supreme Power than to ask from it a lease of infinite ages. Nevertheless, our fidelity is rendered more certain by a reasonable and intelligent conception of the end and purpose of existence. We all have the intuitions of immortality, of the Deity as loving and beneficent, and of the final conquest of evil by the good. Believing that death does not end all, we naturally aspire to shape our mundane experience by its relations to the permanent life. Aware of our shortcomings, we seek the knowledge of Deity in the hope that He will aid and enable us to apprehend the chief good, and with somewhat of confidence that all things are directed for the best, and therefore have no real harm in store for us. None of us can believe in a good or goodness that could be complete, and leave us out of its aims. We feel that we are, in some peculiar sense, necessary to God. To know the truth is the impulse of every worthy mind. It is not enough to entertain plausible opinions. Even faith were better, being, as we have seen it defined, "the essence of what is hoped, and the conviction of what is invisible" to such as see with their eyes, but perceive not with a higher faculty. But let us go beyond this, not resting even in what is considered philosophical reasoning and demonstration. If we did, we would be very likely to fall short of the good of actual knowledge. This is what, as we apprehend, Prof. Tyndall has done. His highest mental altitude, as depicted by himself, is still within the atmosphere of the life that now is; and to imagine that there is a continuing beyond this point, is to him

an idea more or less dismal. Beyond this earth-life, all to him is chaos and the eternal void. But it is not unknowable. There is a higher, a profounder knowledge. The real, which lies at the foundation and is the inmost of all, is not everlastingly apart from human ken. We have no necessity for resting content with assertions and half-truths. It is the function of philosophy to explore even to the causes of things, and to make as at one with them. The union of the interior mind with the everyday soul is the essence of all wisdom. We may look in and about us, but here we will find the radiant light. Our own shadow is the spot in our sunshine. The goal and reality of life is to baptize that shadow in the pure, white light, and blend the two into one. Burnish and brighten our earth-life as we may, our actual progress is to know this aright. Human worships are, all of them, endeavors to achieve the ideal. They have somewhat of the god-like in them, whatever may be the grotesqueness which they exhibit. They transcend alike the skepticism of savants and the prayers of those who would cajole or bribe the Infinite. I would myself dispense with all forms and formulas, serving God by my work in useful avocations, having no temple but the open world with the sky for its dome; no church but my own heart; no symbol of religion except what science gives me; no dependence on good reputation or fear of ill report, but reposing on the verdict of my own conscience, and always feeling myself in the presence of the high causes that rule and animate all things. Yet I would respect as well as tolerate the opinions, customs, and ceremonies which others feel to be so essential. I can even unite with them in the comprehensive summary of the Roman sage and emperor, Marcus Aurelius: "It is pleasant to die if there are gods, and sad to live if there are none." The Mysteries which in ancient times included the more important elements of religion, were founded upon the idea that our earth-life was infelicitous and the sequence of an unhappy separation from the Divine source of existence. This condition was prefigured in the fable by Psyche "falling asleep in the death-world." Plotinus has depicted it with greater emphasis: "When the soul has descended into the earth-life (genesis), it partakes of evil and is brought into a condition the very opposite of her first purity and integrity, the complete merging into which is a falling into a dark mire." This mire is a negative condition, the antithesis of the positive, the just, and the good. Omitting for the present all reference to the implied preexistence, which must be accredited to the poetic or spiritual entity, I must conceive this negative condition as incidental to our mundane existence and personal individuality. In making the human soul objectively distinct from his own essence, the Divine Creator must needs place the element of vitality "a world apart" from himself. Such a condition being, however, opposite if not antagonistic to the good, the soul should, on its awaking, endeavor to extricate itself from this calamitous involvement. This awaking is dependent upon a perception of the essence and nature of things; in other words, real knowledge or wisdom. Philosophy is the love and pursuit of such knowledge; and being this, it assimilates the person to the Divinity himself. This assimilation is the enfranchisement of the divine element of the soul. To cognize God as the essence of truth, is to be intelligent; to cognize Him as the substance of goodness in truth, is to be wise; to cognize Him as the essence of all that is desirable in goodness and truth, is to love. This "Platonic Love" is an essential feature of our philosophy. According to the great prince of sages, excellence (kalon) was the highest aspiration of the soul; and the intuition

(noesis) of truth its most exalted condition. All preliminary discipline was preparative of this final effort of the soul, the struggle for the possession of the great central excellence. Love is developed in the higher form when the soul strains after the infinite excellence, prompted on its path by earthly manifestations. It is developed in a subordinate sense when souls, as kindred essences, recognize each other in the world of sense; hence it includes the ordinary notions of exalted friendship. The popular opinion only takes account of this lower form, totally ignoring the higher, which is, after all, the genuine and real. It is generally supposed that Plato taught the preexistence of the soul as essential to its immortality. There are plausible grounds for imagining that we have existed, and perhaps dwelt upon the earth. Persons and scenes often present themselves to us with the consciousness that we have encountered them before. We may know, speaking after the manner of men, that this cannot have been true. Yet we cannot well avoid feeling, if not thinking, that we have inherited this consciousness from some ancestor who met with the adventure; or else that we were our own predecessors, and, in some former term of existence, had witnessed and acted personally in the matter. If this be so, our birth is indeed "a sleep and a forgetting." It is more probable, however, that the great philosopher was employing this suggestion of a former life to tell us the meaning of the "mystic drama," which was regularly exhibited as a solemn religious representation, to such as were initiated. It was common in all ancient countries to have these scenic displays and initiations; and some, who went to great lengths in divine studies, were taught a profound as well as arcane learning. It would not have been safe for Plato to discourse in familiar language of the doctrines illustrated and enforced at the Sacred Orgies. Aischylos but barely escaped death for a sentence in one of his productions; and Aristarchos was charged by Kleanthes with impiously profaning the secrets of the Mysteries, because he divulged the heliocentric doctrine now imputed to Kopernik. Even in the Christian period, the Alchemists found it necessary to employ a peculiar jargon to veil their distinctive sentiments. To show how successful they were, it is only necessary to note the fact that Paracelsus, four centuries ago, discoursing after their manner about mercury, is now frequently decried as having been the first to use it as a medicine! The logic of prisons, racks, thumbscrews and autosda-fe, not only produced martyrs, but utterers of vague sentences. A similar logic may account for certain "dark sayings" of Plato. Every sciolist is ready to tell us what constitutes the Myth of the Mysteries - the misfortunes and calamities of Adon, Osiris, Zagreus, and the maiden Kora; the wanderings and bitter grief of Demeter, Isis, and Astar-Salambo. The processions, the dances, the tumultuous runnings to and fro, the watch-nights, the wailings, the hilarious mirth at the rising of the Lost One from the Death-world, are plain to such men without an interpreter. Lobeck has told us that the Eleusinia were but insignificant affairs, having little in them not apparent on the surface. Any theater could reproduce them. Even Aristoteles was of opinion, it is said, that the initiated learned nothing definite; but received impressions, were put in a certain frame of mind. Alkibiades, himself a pupil of Sokrates, found the arcane rites a rare theme for sport; but Plato felt that he was beholding eternal realities. Ploutarchos reminded his bereaved and sorrowing wife that she had been instructed in the ancient doctrines and also in the sacred Mysteries of Dionysios, and knew, therefore, that souls passed immediately into a happier and diviner condition. Even Paul, the Christian Apostle, whom it was sought to discredit as holding "the doctrine of Balaam," made use of

the mystic and Platonic language, declaring the Jesus of his Gospel was the Chrestos or oracle-god, and the spirit that imparted arcane knowledge (gnosis) and enfranchisement. "We speak wisdom among the initiated," said he - "the wisdom of God in a mystery, arcane; of which no one of the archons of the present period ever had cognition." It is easy to perceive from these expressions that he apprehended that the purport of the Sacred Rites was something transcendent, lofty, and far-reaching. We do not go far astray in taking like views of the matter, and shall deem it fortunate to be able to read between the lines. When the Sphinx sat on the summit of Phikeio and propounded her riddle, only one man, it is said, was able to solve it. Alas, poor Oidipos! You first explained the enigma, and then became its woeful exemplar. To each of us is the same riddle propounded; we must give the solution in our own persons. It is alike the secret of the Mysteries and the problem of the ages; "the dream is one." Races, nations, and individuals are engaged in deciphering its meaning. Plato in the Timaios declares to us: "To discover the Creator and Father of the universe as well as his work, is difficult; and when discovered, it is impossible to reveal Him to the many." So with the riddle of the Sphinx; no one who can interpret it can make the solution known to another. It was exhibited to the epoptes at the last unfolding, and constituted the autopsy, or view of himself. He came forth a seer, clairvoyant; or else saw and understood nothing. "Tis gar oiden anthropon ta (bathe) tou anthropou?" Under the allegory of the Charioteer and his winged horses, Plato has indicated the arcane truths of the real world, as illustrated and typified by the Orgies. He purposely omits the coming of the neophyte to the portal of the Mystic Cave, his baptism, the vision of the empousa, the appearing of the Eumenides and other personages. The psychopompos is also unnoticed; and even the Great Mother and her hierophant. It may as well have been the Rites of Bacchus or the Egyptian Isis as of Demeter. What we are told constitutes the substance of all telestic rites. It is the veritable unlocking of both microcosm and macrocosm with "the keys of Hades and Death." An open eye is requisite in order to read aright what Plato has uttered so artfully in Phaidros. Cary, Sydenham, Thomas Taylor, and the erudite Professor Jowett, have endeavored to transcribe his narrative in plain English; but how far have they done it aright? Must we not read it too, with eyes fixed and ears clairaudient? Some would have us believe that the philosopher was making a resume of the doctrines of the Egyptians, and perhaps also of the Buddhists of India. It may be so; still he represented Sokrates as speaking from mantic impulse. The ancients knew and wisely taught that a state of mania or agitation of the soul, was an incident of prophetic inspiration. "When you can use the lightning," said Napoleon, "it is better than cannon." Sokrates declares that "this mania is given by the gods for the purpose of conferring the highest felicity. The proof of this is incredible to the shrewd and cunning, but credible to the wise." Plato accordingly depicts the autopsy of the Mysteries as a reminiscence of what the seer or spectator had witnessed in the eternal world. The horses of the gods are noble, he tells us; but those of mortals are unlike, one well-trained, and one the opposite. So long as the soul is in its perfection, it goes everywhere and controls all; but when the wings fail, it moves at random, finally coming into union with the body. The wings, more than anything else that is corporeal, partake of the divine nature. Now that which is divine is the excellent (kalon), the true, the good (agathon), and everything like these. It is this which sustains

and strengthens the wings of the soul; but that which is vile and evil enfeebles and destroys them. The divine ruler Zeus and the greater gods, all except Hestia, who remains alone, drive those winged chariots, attended by a host of lesser divinities (daimones) to order and direct all things. Then, what delightful views, what grand spectacles opening out to the sight, enliven all the interior depths of the heavens while the blessed ones go about on their several offices; all who have the will or power to follow accompanying them on their rounds! The chariots of the gods move easily, but those of the others toil on with difficulty, because the horse that is vicious leans and presses heavily toward the earth, unless the driver has trained him well. Here, then, the severest toil and trial is laid upon the soul. Essence or real being, without color, shape, or sensibility to the touch, is perceptible only to the interior mind, which is the guide of the soul. The sphere of true knowledge surrounds essence. The mind of each divinity is fed by intelligence and knowledge; so too, the interior mind of every soul that would do its proper work, loves to contemplate that which is, and is delighted accordingly and nourished, till the revolution of the sky has brought it once more to the place of setting out. In this circuit the divine one beholds justice, wisdom, and knowledge - the interior knowledge of real being. Such is the life of the gods. The man who turns these reminiscences to right account, is constantly perfecting himself in the genuine initiations, and only such a one becomes truly a seer, clairvoyant and clear-hearing. He is isolated from the anxieties and disquietudes incident to others, and cares only for divine matters. Hence he is designated by the multitude as a man out of his senses: they do not see that he is inspired! This is the best of all enthusiasms, and best in its origin, both for him who possesses and him who shares in it. Every one who desires excellence partakes of the divine mania, and is styled in the Platonic dialect, a lover. Few have sufficient memory, we are told, to recall to mind the Sacred Spectacles. Those who chance to see a resemblance of what was beheld, are transported with the view and are no longer masters of themselves. None of these resemblances are bright, however; and hence only a few are able to discern the character of what is represented. "But," says our philosopher, "it was easy to perceive the most exquisite excellence when, together with the divine chorus, we, being with Zeus, and others with other gods, beheld the blessed view and spectacle, and were also initiated into Mysteries which it is proper to call the most happy. We then celebrated these orgies, being sound and entire, and accordingly free from the evils which awaited us in the coming time. Likewise, both the initiates and seers witnessed visions in the pure light, entire, simple, fixed, and blessed, being ourselves pure and not as yet marked by this which surrounds us and we call Body, to which we are fastened like an oyster to its shell." From this description by the Master we can trace the purport of the initiation and subsequent rites. The Mystes or candidate was required to wash himself thoroughly before entering the Sacred Cavern or Sekos. It was customary at the Minor Rites to wash a hog, to typify the incomplete character of the ceremony, because the brute would return speedily to the mire. After a prolonged wandering, beset of spectres, the neophyte was escorted into the presence of the gods, and saw them represented in a glowing light. Some belonged to the Underworld and some to the supernal regions. He maintained the strictest silence, contemplating the petroma, or tablet of stone, from which the hierophant read the Awful Lesson.

Thus was the Sphinx's secret revealed, the mystery of ages and times; and its apocalypse is MAN. The drama of Eleusis exhibits the riddle in a mystic guise; but the end was only the grand lesson which all the sages endeavored to inculcate: Gnothi Seauton know thyself! All the supernal world, with its gods, half gods, and other divinities, is comprised in this. Every fugitive of fate is wandering hither and thither in quest of it. Happy if, like Odysseus, he has Wisdom for his companion, and so escapes the perilous rocks in safety, is not transformed of the cup of Kirke, nor seduced into the dilettantism of the Lotoseaters, or by the blandishments of the Sirens. He may descend into the world of mortality, but he will emerge into true life. No more walled in by circumstance, he will abide henceforth in the Higher Good and behold everything with the eye of the Infinite. (The Canadian Theosophist, Vol. 57, no. 6, Jan.-Feb., 1977; The Platonist, Vol. 1, no. 1, Feb., 1881) --------------

The Double, Matters of Facts and Fiction - Alexander Wilder, M. D., F. A. S. A well-known author of merit told Professor Huxley of her fantastic imaginings. When she was writing of nights and the house quiet, she heard burglars at work. "So do I," replied Huxley. "When I am working at night I not only hear burglars moving about, but I actually see them looking through the crack in the door at me." Mr. Dickens had a similar vivid consciousness of the presence of uncanny visitors. When he was writing, the figures of the individuals that he depicted would seem to be before him or at his side, and he perceived their peculiar aura and even heard them speak. We also note somewhat of the same when we read any of his books. We see the selfcomplacent Dombey, the sanctimonious Pecksnift, Aunt Betsey Trotwood, Mr. F.'s Aunt, Jolly Mark Tapley, Dorrit in the Marshalsea, the Wellers with their wisdom, Fagin, little Oliver, Barnaby Rudge, Uriah Heep, and the angelic Agnes Wickford, Rose Maylie, Mr. Bagnet enforcing marital discipline and an infinite variety of others; and they are characters almost the same as we ourselves have met. Many call this peculiar sensibility genius; it is hardly that, for genius creates, while this is a receiving of impressions and again giving them forth. We have all heard voices and beheld objects where in the realm of things about us there was no one to speak or visible thing like what we seemed to see. Once, some years ago, when I was sitting upon the porch of a house in Illinois, I became drowsy with the heat and sultriness. A few moments later I aroused myself and distinctly saw, at a considerable distance away, near a Female Academy, two full-blown sunflowers. Their cores were very dark-colored, and I contemplated them with interest. Suddenly they disappeared; in fact there had been nothing of the kind there, and I was left to speculate upon what it was all about. Many years ago. I had an analogous experience to a purpose as could be perceived at once. I was standing beside a dead pine tree, when I heard or rather felt a voice, not at the ear but as if at the top of the head, exclaiming: "Stand back!" I obeyed at once, going

backward several steps. Immediately, the broken top of the tree, some feet in length, came filling to the ground exactly where I had been standing, with force sufficient to partly bury it in the soil. But for the incredulity and the sneers that such narratives encounter, there are many persons who have had experiences of the same character. Few, comparatively, however, have the hardihood to expose themselves to the imputation of being visionaries or not quite sound in mind or understanding. Yet visionaries regenerate society. There is a physiological explanation which may account for some of these phenomena. Some of our textbooks explain the structure and function of certain ganglia within the head. These receive the impressions from the outside world, transmit them to the reasoning faculty with its nervous organism, and also in turn are themselves impelled from the will and interior consciousness to project the results of their action into form as objects that we can contemplate. Thus, by this mysterious action of mind, certain impressions are projected forth again as visible things, others as sounds, others as bodily sensations. They seem to us from habit to have been produced immediately from outside, whereas, they are really the reflections from ourselves, from the mirror or sensorium that exists within us. If, then, cases occur with us in which the internal impulse is given, although there has been no antecedent impression from without, there may be the apparent seeing, hearing, or feeling as truly as though there had been the external impression. So we may hear when no external noise has been made that is sufficient to rouse the corporeal sense; we may see when the visible object is not corporeally present; we may feel without any contact which can be shown. Our thoughts may project themselves into physical sensation, and agencies not tangible by methods known as scientific, can inspire and impel our thinking. It is possible, also, for others under certain conditions to transmit their thoughts and impulses, and even their sensations to us in such a way as to make us conceive that those sensations are our own. Bunyan describes an occurrence of that kind in the experience of his Pilgrim when passing through the Valley of the Shadow of Death. Doubtless, this subject can be elaborated to a fuller extent. It is not always easy, therefore, to account for experiences or manifestations that seem to be abnormal or extraordinary. A mode of reasoning that is dependent upon sensuous considerations is neither philosophic nor adequate to the elucidating of causes. It is little else than a groping among phenomena after the manner of blind man or men in the dark, and of such men the seeking to find outlets and pathways for others who are likewise in the dark, or destitute of a true faculty of sight. There are, however, other manifestations that attract attention, and of which I have read with much interest. Some of them are given by writers of fiction, and must therefore be received with allowance. But as a general fact, writers of fiction do not invent outright. They copy and adapt actual occurrences, and so are at least qualifiedly true. Other statements are simple statements of fact, and to be treated as such. If any of these appear to be of the nature of vagary, others of them nevertheless are entirely beyond any such mode of explanation. When I was at the School of Philosophy in Concord, Massachusetts, in 1882, I was conversing one day with some ladies, when one of them asked me whether I believed it possible for an individual to appear in visible form apart from the body. Some years after this she informed me of having asked the question. She had witnessed such an

occurrence. She and another lady had been occupying a room together. The figure of a person whom she recognized, but whom she knew to be at some distance away, was plainly seen by her at night. The figure was somewhat luminous, and sufficiently distinct for her to perceive who it was. The late Dr. J. Marion Sims was very familiar with a gentleman, and in their social intercourse was called and called himself "James the First." One morning, the friend was surprised by the appearing of Dr. Sims at the door of his room, with the announcement "James the First is dead!" Dr. Sims had died suddenly that morning in the City of New York. Incidents of this character are quite numerous. There are examples, however, in which the individual encountered his own counterpart personality. Wilkie Collins was in the habit of writing by night. Finally on one occasion he found his seat occupied. There was another Wilkie Collins at the table, his own simulacrum. The two had a struggle for the place, and the inkstand was upset. Mr. Collins then recovered his usual condition; but, lo, there was the ink running over the table. He put matters to rights as he best could, and from that time gave up working by night. An account of the late Professor De Wette, of Halle, in Germany, is related by his colleague, Professor Tholuck. Both these men are theological writers of eminence, and had great influence in the earlier half of the present century in tempering the divinity of the time. Professor De Wette had occasion to spend the evening abroad, and, locking his room, repaired to the place. On his way home he observed a light in his room. The key was in his pocket. He soon afterward perceived the figure of a man walking the floor. It was his own likeness, in size, features, dress and everything. De Wette was a matter-offact man. Resolved to see the affair out to a finality he procured a room for the night in the house across the street, which commanded a full view of his own apartment. He then watched carefully the other De Wette. He saw him take books from the shelves for consultation, make notes from them, and do other things of a kindred character. Then the figure arose, went to the window, looked out, and finally retired to bed. Early the next morning De Wette hurried over, made his way to his room, unlocked the door, and found everything as he had left it the evening before. But on going into his sleeping apartment, he saw that the ceiling had fallen down upon the bed crushing it utterly. The life of Professor De Wette had thus been saved by the apparition. Professor Tholuck, when relating this account, added: "I believe all this, as I believe in God in heaven." Another occurrence of a kindred nature, with additional features, was published in England many years ago. A gentleman dreamed one night that he was sitting in his easychair in his parlor, when an individual came into the room, attacked him and stabbed him several times. The next day the chair was found to be cut and otherwise defaced, as it would have been if the crime had been actually committed. It would seem as though the assailant was actually there, and that he had seen the form of the gentleman in the chair, upon which he accordingly made the murderous attack. In such case the duplicate figure must have been sufficiently identified with the individual to affect his consciousness and cause the dream. Apparently taking the cue from occurrences of this character, several writers in recent years have produced stories for the newspapers, setting forth cases of an analogous kind. One describes Laurie Pryce, a motherless boy in an unsympathetic home. His every childish impulse has been repressed, he neither hopes nor enjoys. But he talks of Tom

Robertson at his school, who is fortunate in every respect, at the head of his class, having a fire and a candle in his bedroom, a velvet jacket, an uncle with whom he spent his holidays, a pony and a boat, birthday celebrations, and likewise a beautiful mother and sister. Tom also had other liberties; he climbed a mountain, he had a dog, he had been with gypsies, he attended service in Westminster Abbey, he wanted to be a judge, he had thrashed the bully of the school. Laurie also wrote verses of shish this was a sample: "If your walls are so narrow You cannot see far; Knock a hole in your ceiling And look at a star." In short, this Tom Robertson was everything that Laurie was not, but what he wished to be; he was described as enjoying, possessing and accomplishing everything that the poor starved Laurie desired for himself. At length Laurie takes cold and pneumonia fellows, to which he presently succumbs. During his illness he sees Tom on the bed with him, and holds familiar discourse, in which he furnishes both the questions and the answer. After his death his teacher is requested to invite Tom to the funeral. It then transpires that there had been no such lad in the school, or anywhere in the neighborhood. He was simply an impersonation created by the dead boy's mind and thought, the ideal of what poor Laurie wished to be - a fiction, yet not fictitious. An aunt of the unfortunate child tells the writer of him, and gives him an old copybook in which is repeatedly scrawled the two names - Laurie Pryce and Tom Robertson. He then appends this summary: "And this bit of writing that I have stored away in my desk is Laurie's or 'Tom's,' for where one is, there is the other. Each answers to the other's name. But what about the mother, and the little sister, and the wonderful uncle, and the dog, who all helped to make Tom what he was? I have not lost my faith in Tom, and so they must be where he is somewhere." We may also believe that they are in that world of mind and thought which is the world of actual reality. Paul explains that "the things which are seen are of Time, but the things which are not seen are of eternity." That there is more of a person than the framework of the body, with the blood and nerve-material, goes without telling. Another story more weird and perhaps more unaccountable, is related of a Mrs. Grimstone, who is a guest at a private mansion in a rural district of England. A group has been telling of ghosts and their doings, when the Countess, who is the entertainer of the company, declares her belief that all such things are but a dream. Mrs. Grimstone modestly dissents. "It has more than once occurred to me," she says "that many dreams are reality, and that it is some deficiency in our perception that causes us to think them unreal." She then relates her story. She is a widow; her husband had taken his life to avoid disgrace. He had borrowed five hundred pounds of a usurer. This individual she describes as elderly, with a hook nose, a long white beard, and a wen-like protuberance like a turkey's wattle under his chin. He lives in good style, is given to talking about himself, and is objectionably familiar with every woman that comes in his way. For four years this man

has kept his debtor under a constant slow torture, and succeeded in that time in squeezing more than six hundred pounds out of him in instalments and forfeits on account of interest, while the original debt remained the same. Meanwhile he made frequent visits to the house, and when the husband was absent he would insist on seeing the wife. He took advantage of these opportunities to tell her of his power to ruin her husband and sell their home. Finally his persecution became so sharp and his language so intolerable that she ordered him to leave the house. On going away he wrote a letter to the husband demanding payment of the debt at once, and threatening him if he did not comply. The unfortunate man sought refuge in suicide. Years passed. Her daughter Ethel was growing up into young womanhood, and so the mother went again into society. It so happened that they joined a household party at Lady Glover's. On the second day in the evening she finds her daughter in conversation with the man whose persecution had driven the father to his death. She calls her away and they retire to their rooms for the night. But the mother is wakeful and uneasy. She goes to the room where her daughter is sleeping, and a moment later hears a paper thrust under the outer door. It is an unsigned note appointing an interview. She determines to protect her child. At the end of the corridor the man is standing inside his own apartment, before a swing-glass, with a pair of scissors trimming his beard. She makes her way to the room, nerves herself, enters without noise, seizes him by the throat and pulls him to the floor. When he ceases to struggle she plunges the scissors into his wattle of flesh, and her husband is avenged. Now comes the Nemesis. His bloated features peer at her through the lookingglass. She seizes a candlestick and breaks the glass to pieces. But then, every piece separately mirrors that face, and she loses consciousness. She finds herself in her own bed and her daughter, fully dressed, bending over her. We now have the remarkable part of the story. It was at half-past one that the mother had picked up that note and read its contents, afterward going out into the corridor, as she relates. Ethel, the daughter, now informed her that a few minutes after one she had heard her talking in her sleep and so came immediately into the room, but that she had not been able to awaken her. The girl remained at her mother's bedside for more than an hour, while she muttered and tossed like one in a fever. Then she fell into a deep sleep, while the daughter sat by dozing and terrified. So it would appear, all was but a dark dream, yet it was true. The mother and daughter did not go down to breakfast till the other guests had finished and left the table. Then they were told that "the old gentleman had died suddenly." The door of the room had been broken open, the informant said, and he was dead on the floor. He was not murdered, because his door was locked on the inside, and the windows were shut and fastened. Hence, the case was supposed to be suicide. He had wounded himself with a pair of scissors, the man explained, and what was more wonderful he had knocked over a looking-glass as he fell, which must have made a terrific noise; yet he did not alarm the household. Nor was this the last marvel in the story. Years pass; the daughter marries, and the mother chances to be a guest in the same house. She happens to be in the library the second evening after her arrival; and places on the shelf a book upside down. She takes it out and turns it. At this moment a piece of paper falls out. It is the note which has been described as having been thrust under the door into Ethel's room that terrible night.

The author, Adolph Krausse, after telling this story, represents the hearers as trumping up the stereotyped explanations of "imagination," "second sight," "hallucinations," "coincidence." Admit, if we must, that the account is fiction, but the real question is whether it is an impossibility. If the event is to be considered as something which really happened, in some way or other, we next become inquisitive in regard to the principles and processes by which it took place . As it does not come within the circle of common experience, the solution must be sought beyond. We do not mean that a new element of causation is involved, but only that there has been a manifestation that transcended the boundaries of our daily knowing. The agency which we are seeking to comprehend, is no other than the duplicate selfhood which seems in some respects to be a thing apart from our physical constitution, and even to pass hither and thither without impediment from external observation. Our thought does this very thing. It makes no account of time or distance, but passes the boundaries of both, utterly unconscious of them. It is not chained even by Divinity itself. In close analogy to it, we may assume that there is a form of personality more closely allied to the physical corporeity, yet capable of becoming distinct enough from it to undertake activities of its own. This actually occurs, as we have noted, at the period of bodily dissolution. It may therefore take place in other instances when the body is in a quiescent condition, as a trance or ecstasy, or perhaps even when there is a very deep sleep, or a catalepsy. The ancient writers have preserved examples that illustrate and demonstrate this. Even if we should suppose these to be fabulous and traditional, we may bear in mind that such stories would hardly be invented from imagination, except there had been facts of a kind to found them upon. Hermotimos or Hermodoros of Klazomenae in Asia Minor was subject to trances in which he lay apparently dead; and after awakening, he would tell of visits that he had made to other regions of the world. Finally, when lying in this cataleptic condition, some officious acquaintances persuaded his wife to cremate his body. What was it that thus went forth? Paracelsus would tell us that was the astral body. "In sleep," he tells us, "the astral body is in freer motion: then it soars to its parents, and holds converse with the stars." "It discourses with the outward world" and travels round the visible as well as the invisible worlds. Plutarch brings this explanation more completely within the psychology purview. "What we are," says he, "is not courage nor fear nor desire, any more than it is flesh and fluids, but it is the part that thinks and understands. And the soul being itself molded and formed by this mind or understanding, itself molds and forms the body and receives from it an impression and form. So, although it be separated from both the mind and body, it nevertheless for a long time retains still the figure and semblance of the body, so that it may properly be called the image, or eidolon." This theory is in harmony with the Pauline psychology as given in the New Testament. It is also Platonic, and in many respects easy to comprehend. The several Hindu philosophies, however, are more explicit and diversified. It is evident, from the examples and illustrations that have been cited, that there exists in the human will a force which is capable not only of producing phenomenal changes in the corporeal organism, but likewise of employing the psychic body in that organism to perform acts of a physical character, which we are in the habit of supposing require the agency of material instrumentalities.

The Nineteenth Century has witnessed immense advances in mechanic skill. Steam has been put into harness and made to propel machinery of every kind; and electricity, an agent so subtle and refined that we can hardly guess what it is, has been subjugated to our behests, as only a vivid fancy could have dreamed. Perhaps, in the Twentieth Century, now at the door, we shall witness the grander achievement; that Man, rising beyond the realm of material agencies, shall perceive the transcendent faculties of his own being, and by them accomplish purposes and attainments so vast that only inspiration and intuition will be capable of realizing them. (Reprinted from The New Cycle (Metaphysical Magazine), vol. 11, Jan., 1900, from a paper read before the School of Philosophy, New York City, November 6, 1899.) ---------------

Knowing and Foreknowing - Alexander Wilder The spiritual history of man has been characterized by a continuous effort to escape beyond the misty region of uncertainty. What has been denominated "superstition"* has had its place in human minds, not from abject and servile impulses, but from the innate aspiration to recover somewhat of the forgotten knowledge of the great mysteries of life and its relations to the universe. We all have an instinctive dread to be alone. Most of the fear of death is from the consciousness that it is a mysterious problem, which is to be solved individually, unaided and unaccompanied. Hence in every age and period there have been persons who left in the background ordinary considerations of personal ambition and advantage in order to engage in the pursuit of a higher wisdom and communion with the powers that influence the phenomena and vicissitudes of life. There has been little difference in this matter between ruder peoples and the more cultivated. "All yearn after gods," Homer declares, and Plato adds the assurance: "All things are full of the Divine, and we are never neglected through the forgetfulness or carelessness of spiritual beings." ---------* This term, superstition, indicates by its structure and etymology a far nobler meaning than the one now commonly assigned to it. It originally denoted an upperstanding, a superior knowledge, a comprehending of higher subjects. Hence it was anciently used solely as a designation of religious topics. ---------But for this, living would be a calamity, the universe a chaos of disorder and terror. All in such case that the acutest faculty could perceive would be the onward plowing of events through the years and ages, from nowhence to nowhither, a blind stream of fate moved by a causeless propelling force without aim, purpose or benefit. There would be no truth, nothing to believe. Justice, goodness, moral excellence in such case would be only

the accidents of mortal existence, the temporary and unstable accidents of everyday experience, but serving little further advantage. Into this great whirlpool of unrest and uncertainty we would be hurled by the specious reasoning which are based entirely upon the evidence apparent to the physical senses, and which would arbitrarily place everything else beyond the promise of our knowing. Material things, the illusive visions of the Present, are thus virtually exalted beyond the all-governing life which is manifested through the affections and spiritual energies that manifest the avatar of the Divine. Death dissolves all those - what then? The Dream of Johann Paul Richter presents the sad reply to the anxious enquiry. There the scene is exhibited of the figures of the dead gliding from their coffins and the charnel into the church, all of them passionately eager to know the solution of the Great Problem. Above, on the dome of the edifice, stands the dial-plate of Eternity with no number visible upon it, and it is its own index. The dead seek to read the time upon it, but in vain. Then a lofty, noble form, having the expression of a never-ending sorrow, sinks down from above upon the altar, and the dead, all with a single voice, exclaim: "Christ, is there no God?" And he replies: "There is none! I traversed the worlds; I ascended into the suns, and flew with the Milky Way through the wilderness of the heavens, but no God was there. I descended as far as Being throws its shadow, and as I gazed down into the abyss, I cried aloud: 'Father, where art thou?' But I heard nothing except the Eternal Storm which no one rules; and the beaming rainbow in the west hung, without a creating sun, above the abyss, and fell down in drops. And when I looked up to the immeasurable world for the Divine Eye, it glared upon me from an empty, bottomless socket. Eternity lay brooding upon Chaos, and gnawed it, and ruminated it. Cry on, ye discords! Cleave the shadows with your cries; for he its not!.'" Then the figures of the dead, despairing, melt away, as frost melts before warm breath. The place is void. Then the little children that have died awaken in the churchyard and come into the temple. Casting themselves down before the lofty form upon the altar, they ask imploringly: "Jesus, have we no Father?" And he answers with streaming eyes: "We are all orphans. I and you; we have no Father." And as he says this the Discords shriek more harshly; the trembling walls of the temple fall asunder; the temple itself and the children sink beneath. No man is left except the giant Serpent of Eternity, crouched round the universe of worlds and enfolding them within its coils to squeeze them into the infinite Dark and nothingness. Nevertheless, behind this dreary picture the profounder question happily arises: How could all these have had exercise at all if force be without purpose or intelligence? Certainly, because we are not able with our cups to measure the waters of the ocean, it does not follow that the ocean is beyond our knowledge. We may view it from its shores, we may sail upon its bosom, we are refreshed by the showers which its emanations supply, we know that bays and inlets are its members and that countless rivers flow into its embrace. So, likewise, we may know God. The greater world is not hid from us by impenetrable darkness, nor has the Supreme Being left himself without witness. We may not determine the matter by our limited faculties solely, for the finite does not comprehend the infinite. Nevertheless, we may perceive by the fact of our own existence, by the operations of the universe around us, by the impartial and unerring justice that works around, within, and above us; and beyond there is that higher intuition which carries the mind from the exterior into close and intimate union with the interior of things.

We need not care for the imputation of charlatanry which is sometimes wantonly cast upon the whole subject of supernaturalism. It is not to be thus set aside as vagary of the imagination. The very ability to imagine the possibility of wonderful powers is itself evidence that there actually are such powers. The doubter as well as the critic is very often inferior to the subject which is reviewed, and he is therefore hardly competent to give judgment. Where there are fraudulent representations, we may be confident that they are made from a correct original. The birds of the night may repudiate the concept of superiority in the sunshine, and may extol the beauties of night and twilight; but the true soul, while discarding the hallucinations of the senses and the morbid hankering after marvels, and likewise while making use of clear and careful reasoning upon all subjects that belong in the province of the understanding, will always be ready to cognize what is beyond. The Prophetic Faculty There is a prophetic faculty of the human soul which may be roused into activity when the exigency arises for its manifestation. It may even be developed and cultivated till we are able to receive normally the communication of interior knowledge, and to perceive, as by superhuman endowment what is good and true, as well as what is appropriate for the immediate occasion. To some this may appear as an extraordinary sensibility, and others may even consider it as a supernatural power. Dean Stanley affirmed that a faculty of divination is granted in some inexplicable manner to ordinary individuals, and he referred for illustration to such examples as the prediction by Dante of the Protestant Reformation, and by Seneca of the discovery of America. Milton also described the genius of the poets Pindar and Kallimachus as "the inspired gift of God rarely bestowed, but to some (though most abuse) of every nation." Indeed, it would not seem impartial or even plausible to suppose that God inspired only the Hebrew prophets, leaving all others unaided. Certainly the Hebrew prophets appear to have been men of genius, energy and lofty enthusiasm. Whatever may have been their mental powers, they all very generally appear to have depended upon the spiritual faculty normally exercised. Maimonides declares this to explicit terms. "All prophecy," he affirms, "makes itself known to the prophet that it is prophecy indeed, by the strength and vigor of the perception, so that his mind is freed from all scruple about it." Nevertheless, the ancient prophets appear to have sometimes relied upon peculiar dreams and theurgic arts to develop the clear-seeing and claraudiant powers. In the book of Job it is explained that "in a vision of the night when deep sleep falleth upon man, in slumbering upon the bed, then God openeth the ears of men and sealeth their instruction." This is also attested in the book of Numbers: "If there be a prophet among you, I, the Lord, will make myself known to him in a vision and will speak to him in a dream." Balaam is described as receiving mantic communications in these peculiar ways. He made use of enchantments or charms, mystic songs, and other modes of obtaining the magic influence; and declared that he heard the word of God, that "he knew the knowledge of the Most High and saw the vision of the Almighty, falling into a trance, but having his eyes open." The clairvoyant powers of the prophet Elisha are delineated as being most remarkable. When his servant Gehazi had obtained in his name a gift fraudulently from the

Syrian general, he showed his perception of the affair. "Went not my heart with thee," he demanded, "when the man turned again from his chariot to meet thee?" Also, when the King of Syria sent ambuscades, he was able to warn the King of Israel (probably Jehoahaz), who thus saved himself many times. Finally the Syrian monarch interrogated his officers that he might ascertain which of them was divulging his plans. And one of his servants said: "None, my lord, O King: but Elisha, the prophet that is in Israel, telleth the King of Israel the words that thou speakest in thy bed-chamber."* ----------* The late Dr. Samuel Warren, the author of numerous essays and works of fiction, relates the story of "The Spectre-Smitten," in which is an account of this same character. The man while lying ill upon his bed tells accurately what is taking place in another apartment in the same house at the same time. The undertaker and assistants are preparing a body for interment, and all occurred as he describes. This was written over seventy years ago. ----------It is also recorded that Elisha journeyed to Damascus, and was visited by Hazael, an officer of the king, Ben Hadad. In that interview the prophet predicts to his visitor the cruelties of which he was about to be guilty, that he would burn the towns of the Israelites and massacre the people, not sparing women or unborn babes. Hazael being only in a subordinate position, pleaded this in exculpation: "What, thy servant, the dog; how can he do this monstrous thing?" The prophet replied: "The Lord has shown thee to me, as the King of Syria." It seems from expressions to several places that there were naioth or schools where prophets were trained. Elisha is represented as an ab or Father of such an institution. It is plain that there should be careful instruction and discipline of the mantic as of other faculties. All our powers being limited, they require proper development, else they may remain dormant, or become abnormal. It is more than possible to confound hallucinations and vagaries of fancy with monitions and communication from the superior world. The Hebrew writers have told of such occurrences. Jeremiah described the prophets of Judea in his time as mingling their own conceptions to such a degree as to "see a vision of their own hearts," and even to speak falsehood for God and utter deceit for him. Prophets and oracles existed in all the ancient countries of which there are records. The temple of Amun in the Libyan desert, the grotto of Trophonios in Boeotia, the oracles of Delphi and Dadona were celebrated resorts at which to ascertain the purposes of heaven. Homer mentions the prophet Kalchas, and the mantic daughter of Priam Kassandra. Tiresias, another ancient seer, was said to have been struck blind for having looked upon Athena when the goddess was unrobed. By this parable it was signified that he had divulged the sacred knowledge unlawfully, and became unable ever afterward to cognize the divine wisdom. His daughter Manto was also a prophetess who is said to have founded the oracle of Klaros, and her son Mopses was likewise expert in divination. There were many ways, other than by actual seership or clairaudience, that were employed to obtain oracular responses. The patriarch Joseph is described as divining with his cup, and the prophet Balaam employed certain methods for procuring enchantments. The Rabbis made account of the Bath Kul, the daughter or meaning within what was said,

or a chance utterance that seemed to solve a question. Dickens, perhaps without meaning it, has given an analogous example. Clennam reviews the painful experience of his past career, and asks: "What have I found?" That moment his door softly opened and the newcomer modestly announces herself: "Little Dorrit." At Dadona it is recorded that the oracular responses were made from the rustling of the leaves of the Sacred Oak; and at Kolophion, the priestess of the shrine became mantic or inspired from drinking of the water of a certain stream. At Delphi the peculiar clairvoyance was attributed to the inhaling of a vapor from a fissure in the earth. In the second book of Kings the prophet Elisha is described as becoming entheast from the playing by a minstrel. Testimonies of Ancient Philosophers The philosophers Pythagoras and others who taught an esoteric knowledge included with it the divining or prophetic function. Sokrates is described as counseling young men to study the art who were not content with the common branches of learning. In the Platonic dialogue, Ion, he indicates an arcane meaning in the writings of Homer, somewhat like the internal sense which Emanuel Swedenborg in our own time, has ascribed to some of the principal books of the Bible. Plato, in The Banquet, gave the discourse of the wise Diotima Mantineki, explaining the three forms of love, and setting forth the henisis or ecstatic interblending of the soul with the divine, as the outcome of all. Iamblichos, who mingled theurgy and oriental mysticism with his teachings, gave very full descriptions of these subjects, including prophecy, visions, inspired dreams, trances and oracles. There is a power, he declared, which does not originate from the habitudes of the body, nor yet from any power that may be externally acquired. Even dreams are often false, he remarks, as they chance to be occasioned by peculiar conditions of the soul, or by daily cares. But in a sleep in which we are liberated from the bodily life, the soul may receive divine energy and a ken that perceives what has been and what is to be; making discoveries likewise in the arts, and how justice should be rendered. Medical knowledge is often given in such dreams. Instances of this occur frequently. The hierophant he declares to be a Prophet full of Divinity. The subordinate powers of the superior world are at his bidding, for he is a god empowered to command them. He is not himself living the life that is common to others. He has exchanged the human life for the divine. Men of this character and powers do not employ the waking senses like others, nor indeed do they have a purpose which is their own. They speak wisdom which they often do not themselves understand; and their faculties, absorbed in a divine power, become the agent of a superior will. Foreknowing "It is very probable," says the imaginative Heinrich Jung-Stilling, "that the inhabitants of the invisible world, and especially good angels and spirits, read in the tablets of Providence, and so are able to know at least certain future events. So much is clear from all the credible information from that region; That everything that takes place in the material world is previously arranged there* and that thence the whole human race is governed - yet in such a manner that the will of man is not under compulsion." -----------

* Daniel, x, 2. "I Daniel was mourning three full weeks.... Then said he (the angel messenger): 'From the first day that thou didst set thine heart to understand, and to chasten thyself before thy God, thy words were heard, and I am come for thy words. But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me one and twenty days.'" ----------This signifies that all events are mirrored in the world beyond, and that the individual whose perceptions are vivified to a proper acuteness may know of them beforehand. lndeed, all persons, as their hold on the exterior world is weakened, have a corresponding aptness to descry the proceedings of the other. Stilling relates the story of an illuminated German woman, the wife of a mechanic, who died in 1790. She had been asked to tell the result of the French Revolution. It could not last, she said; nevertheless, the former state of affairs would never be restored. Rivers of blood were about to be shed, and a dreadful vengeance taken. She saw Admiral Coligny, she declared. He was clad in a bloody shirt and exceedingly active. The Admiral, it will be remembered, had labored a century before to reform the government and religious institutions of France, and was barbarously murdered in 1660 in the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. This vision offers two problems full alike of vast significance; one, whether passing from this mode of existence individuals continue to be busy in the spiritual world with the affairs that occupied their attention before; and another, whether the Admiral had been elaborating for a hundred and thirty years, the terrible retribution which fell upon the descendants of those who did the murders of St. Bartholomew and other atrocities. Stilling also made the remarkable statement that the Revolution had been planned for France many years before. "I know from an eye-and-ear witness," says he, "that the period when Louis XVI was affianced to Marie Antoinette of Austria - at the time when this marriage was concluded upon at Vienna - the fall of the royal family of France was determined, and this marriage alone prevented its accomplishment."* ---------* A distinguished French novelist intimated as much in one of his works. ---------Examples of such vaticination can be multiplied indefinitely. They are as continued now as in the days of the seers of ancient Palestine, the fathers of the former Christendom, and the theurgists of Egypt and Chaldea. Doctor Doddridge dreamed prophetically, and Joseph Hoag saw in vision that future of America which has since been in course of accomplishment. The writer in 1857 heard William Fishbough predict the Civil War and the social and financial changes that would result, It is evident that the human soul in certain relations and conditions is analogous to the electric battery. It will thrill other souls with its own fire and receive from all with whom it is in rapport, impressions and even communications of what they are thinking, and wishing, and doing. It is only an energy of like character that may establish like communication across the line between this world and the region beyond the senses, and brings us near to the angels, spirits and potencies of the invisible universe. "The night-time of the body is the daytime of the soul," says lamblichos. In sleep, he declares, as in entrancement, and in profound contemplation, the soul is freed from the

restraint of the body, and enters upon the life of the higher intellect. The "nobler facility" awakes in its power, enabling the mind which contains in itself the beginnings of all that happens, to discern the future in these antecedent principles which make the future what it is to be. This superior part of the soul is thus a participant of the power and knowledge of God. In short, nevertheless, what is better than marvelous achievement is that wholesome condition of the mind and affections which produces as of its own substance those sentiments and emotions of reverence and justice, those deep principles of unselfish regard for the well-being of others, which render the individual in every fibre of his being, pure and good and true. We have little occasion for the illumination of lamps, stars and meteors, or even of the light of the moon when we have the sun at meridian, beaming forth its golden effulgence in every direction. Nor do we need the utterances of seers, expounders, or even of prophets, when we are ourselves truly at one with the Divine Source of life and Intelligence and are so inspired with the sacred enthusiasm that we, as of our own accord, do the will and think the thoughts of God. Knowing "Truth is always present," Emerson remarks; "it only needs to lift the iron lids of the mind's eye to read its oracles." The knowing of that truth is the more precious of attainments. To know is to possess that which is known. "Ye shall know the truth" says Jesus, "and the truth shall make you free." In this freedom which truth confers there is comprised everything possible. Liberty is the prerequisite of enlightenment and enlightenment that of progress. Knowing is essential to doing; he who kens, can. The true knowledge penetrates into the world of causes. What is commonly termed scientific research is necessarily Iimited to the region of effects. The endeavor to find out the metes and boundaries of the universe will always come short; and our perceptions, however much they may be aided by art, are not sufficiently extended to comprehend the secret of the realm of nature. All that we learn by corporeal sense and may be able to include by the measuring-line of our understanding belong in the category of the mutable and perishing. Though we rear a tower like that of Babel, we may not hope to reach the sky, and there is certain to result upon the builders confusion of speech and opinion. When in this department men go beyond the boundaries of their own conceptions they are likely to find themselves involved in a void of impenetrable darkness, which they set forth as unknowable. From this region however, we may expect cyclones to come which will overturn their ephemeral superstructures, and there will be earthquakes to displace foundations which have been laid with so much skill and labor upon the sand. Knowledge, properly so called is the knowing of that which has real being. It is not a collection of gleanings from one field and another, not a compound more or less heterogeneous, made up of numerous specific facts, but an energy beyond them all transcending all and including all. It is cognition rather than memory and the product of the reasoning faculty. It is not derived from the world of time and limit, but is of the infinite and eternal, the ever-being Now. It depends not on cerebration for its processes, although it may make use of the corporeal organism for its mirror and medium. As the sciences are analytic and concerned with the things which are manifested to the senses, so the intellectible knowing is synthetic and a perceiving of that which really is. What we know thus truly is therefore, that which is of the Foreworld, a recollection or abiding

consciousness which pertains to the soul as being actually, in a certain sense, still there. Such knowing embraces truths which are not apprehended in the world of sense, motives, principles, things immutable. Such are love, the charity which seeks the welfare of others instead of personal advantage; justice, which is the right line of action; beauty, which means fitness for what is beneficial; virtue, which denotes a manly instinct for what is right; temperance, which is due self-control. These are the things of the eternal region which true souls recollect in this sublunary sphere of the senses; and thus recollecting, they put aside the ambition for temporary advantage for that which is permanent and enduring. "Where your treasure is, there also will your heart be," Jesus declares. This knowledge is the most precious of treasures. What we know we possess. Knowing love which is beyond selfishness, justice without perversion, beauty that is beyond what is superficial, virtue which is not mere outside negation or artificial merit, temperance which is the equilibrium of the soul, we include them as the elements of our being - as of us, bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. We have our home and country in the realm where they are indigenous and perennial. Flesh and blood will not inherit the everlasting, kingdom, nor will any thing abide long that is the outcome of flesh and blood. But these will never change or perish, and those who are constituted of them will be as enduring as they. However they may seem to be circumscribed by space, temporal condition and limitation, they live in eternity. Fire will not consume them nor floods sweep them out, nor will death extinguish their being. Sir Kenneth Digby, who flourished in the Seventeenth Century, stated that he once visited the laboratory of a famous physician in Padua, and there was shown to him a small pile of fine ashes under a glass. On the applying of a gentle heat it rose up and assumed the shape of the flower which it had composed originally, having all its parts perfectly distinct in form and well defined in character. While the heat was continued, the apparitional semblance of a plant preserved its delicate outline. Curious as this account may seem, and hard up believe, it serves to illustrate the fact that it is the agency of heat with motion that transforms the deadly cold and barrenness of the frigid zones into the burning temperature and abundant vegetation of the tropical regions. So, too, the soul, involved and held fast in the lifeless cold and ashes of physical existence in the world of time, will manifest its divine qualities when warmed by love and knowledge into consciousness and activity. It will divine, exhibit superior powers of perception, utter oracles, perform wonders, such as the healing of sickness and restoring of minds that are wandering, and will rise to the heights of sublime heroism. "We have, each of us," says Dr. Channing, "the spiritual eye to see, the mind to know, the heart to love, the will to obey, God." Then are we, all of us, subjects and recipients of the Divine. We may not behold as with the natural organ of sight, nor hear as with our bodily ears. Yet it is none the less real, genuine, masterly. "I conceive a man as always spoken to from behind, and unable to turn his head to see the speaker," says Emerson. "The well-known voice speaks in all languages, governs all men, and none ever caught a glimpse of its form." What is called ecstasy is the law and cause of our nature, and it behooves us to accept its manifestations unquestioning. We may thus bring out knowledge into practice, and it will then become a constituent of our being. Once, perhaps oftener, I heard myself a voice that no man uttered. The ear did not perceive any sound, but the profounder self was conscious of it at once. It was an utterance none the less real because the corporeal sense had not been its medium. It

required to be obeyed on the instant, and there was no alternative. There was no reason for it thought of at the time. It would have been idle to sit in judgment upon what was said or to have attempted to procure any explanations. But the spiritual consciousness discerned, although for the psychic man there could be found no reason for considering. There was nothing in the thought or observation to make any purpose known. Yet it proved to be of the most immediate importance. Almost at the moment that I perceived the peculiar mandate I obeyed it without doubt or questioning and so saved my life from danger that was directly impending, the existence of which I had not thought or apprehended. Did such an utterance come from a being intelligent and conscious, distinct from myself? Certainly it was no phantom, no artful creature of the imagination, no outcome of my own reasoning faculty. All these would have failed of the purpose. It was a being, or principle, closer to me than my own thoughts - a something of me, yet I think not me. It may have been God, a tutelary spirit, or that poetic genius of soul that is of me and yet beyond me. This much may perhaps suggest the solution. Our personality is not circumscribed to the limits of the body, but is present and conscious a great way from it, and is capable of containing and receiving within its sphere an infinite number of spiritual beings. Through these intermediaries I was warned. Yet I would not be a seeker for such utterances. It can hardly be right or reasonable to do so, and without doubt it is not orderly. One might presently be entrapped by delusions and led in directions not hard to guess. We are endowed by nature with faculties that are to be exercised and disciplined through experience and the understanding; and it seems to be a kind of irreverence, as well as moral inability, and perhaps even of profanation to be reaching out frequently for such revelations. We have the principles of love and justice to constitute our daily illumination, and we need not seek to be taught by those who come from the dead. Let us be grounded in these principles, by work as well as word, and other boons will not be withheld. But great signs and wonders often characterize charlatanism. Yet when we perceive the inspiration, the superior suggestion or prompting, we should hasten to obey. Argumentation is likely to obscure it; and it seldom appears to be anything transcending the other faculties; nor does it often affect sensibly the emotional nature. It gives clearness of conviction, confidence that the utterance or direction is right. It will revive a recollection, arouse attention to the fact that some particular thing ought to be done promptly, that a certain thing is right or that it is wrong; but it seldom or never shows a reason for the suggestion. Many things which custom has forbidden it declares to be lawful; and others, whether proscribed or not, may be prohibited. It is not a reasoning faculty like the understanding but an instinct of the higher soul. It speaks as man does not, and its utterance is the word of divinity. So Sokrates regarded it even to the fatal cup of poison, and so it is found by the enlightened individual. But no one may exult in its possession. It can not be brought into arbitrary rules and held. If any one were to attempt to exhibit it, he would not be able; it would elude him. It is not proper, the Chaldean Zoroaster declares, to attempt by any passionate or impetuous vehemence to obtain divine illumination; yet if you incline your mind, not too eagerly, but with a pure and teachable disposition, you will obtain it. You will not perceive it as you perceive some particular thing, but with the flower - the most spiritual energy of the mind. But things divine are not attainable by mortals who only apprehend and appreciate things of sense; only the light-armed arrive at the summit.

For there is knowledge which one may possess but he can not impart it or show to others that he really has it. Hence we hear the frequent assertion of the objector that there is nothing of the sort, and that it cannot be proved to exist. No matter, however. The more absolute and positive a truth is, the more impossible it is to prove it, whether it be the shining of the sun at noonday, the love of the dearest friend, or the Divine Source of all. Nevertheless, God is, and men worship. The word, the objectification or expression of God is eternal, and to perceive it is the true knowing. "For the maker of all things and all persons stands behind us and casts his dual omniscience through us over things." (Metaphysical Magazine, vol. 19, no. 8, Oct., 1906) ---------------

Magic and Sorcery - Alexander Wilder Some years ago there appeared a curious story of a man that exhibited him under two distinct phases of character. As Dr. Jekyll he was noble, worthy, and excellent, but as Mr. Hyde he displayed qualities entirely opposite. The representations were ingenious, and to the superficial vices even fantastic. Careful reflection, however, would be certain to divest them of every semblance of vagary. They were pictures of what every one may behold on self-examination. We will find ourselves sometimes almost celestial in thought and aspiration, but at other times very earthly in impulse and action. This twofold quality seems to pertain to every human undertaking. It appears in social movements, in politics. and in reformatory enterprises. Religions are spiritual and elevating, yet in another aspect they seem to pander to selfishness and lust of dominion. We are able to describe every creed as sublime in conception, and again as tinctured with besotting superstition. Such is the case with everything human. Accordingly, as all things are attracted to things of like nature, we are prone to perceive and contemplate the qualities and manifestations that are most like preconceived notions and similar characteristics in our own minds. We see that which we have eyes to see, whether it be vulgar or divine. In nothing, perhaps, is this more conclusive than in the accounts given by different persons of religious customs. We have heard India and China described as having noble religious faiths, and as abounding with degrading sensualism and mental bondage. Doubtless if intelligent persons from either country should tell what they have observed of our own people, the account would be no more flattering. Analogous to this is what we read and observe in regard to magic. The history of magic is coeval with the history of mankind. We find in every ancient people the traces of beliefs, rites, and practices significant of a superior learning and of mysterious relations of the natural to the supernatural. In archaic periods these were included in one category, and were esteemed as surpassing other endowments and acquisitions. This received the designation of magic, or excellence, as being the profounder wisdom. Plato remarks that the Persian royal princes were instructed in magic, and explains that by this is meant the worship and service of Divinity. Apuleius is more explicit, and

defines it as "an art that teaches us most correctly how to worship, that is consistent with piety and skill in divine knowledge, and that has been held in honor from the times of Zoroaster as being the handmaid of the inhabitants of heaven." Hence we observe that the rites and invocations employed in the temples of Assyria were styled Chaldean magic. Other learning, which we would consider as secular and profane, was also included. It was then called sacred, as being cultivated only by men of the sacerdotal rank. Cornelius Agrippa has set this forth in plain terms. Magic he declares to be "the most perfect and chief Science; that sacred and sublimer kind of Philosophy; and lastly the most absolute perfection of all most excellent Philosophy." It embraces the most-high mysteries, and also the knowledge of entire Nature. It also instructs us in matters now classed as purely scientific, "concerning the differing and agreement of things among themselves, whereby it produces its wonderful effects, by uniting the virtues of things by means of the applying of them one to the other, and to their inferior suitable subjects, joining and combining them together thoroughly by the powers and virtues of the superior Bodies." Thus it includes physical science, mathematics (including astronomy), and religious dogma. Except a person should be skillful and accomplished in all these, it was not possible for him to understand the principles of which magic consists. We may perceive accordingly why the members of the sacerdotal colleges were anciently styled mages, or magicians, and why the profounder scholars and philosophers in Europe during the Middle Ages were reputed as proficients in magic lore. The sacred learning, however, had fallen under a cloud in Western Christendom. It was regarded as having a vital connection with the supplanted Egyptian and Mithraic worships, and in this way "magic" was made a term of opprobrium. Not only Gnostics, Platonists, and Kabalists were proscribed but all religious heretics, physicians that were not priests, and scholars, especially those from Moorish universities, were liable to the ban of the Church, and in later centuries to the atrocious cruelties of the inquisition. Many thousands were burned alive under the imputation of witchcraft, including in the number some of the wisest and most liberal of their time. Meanwhile, there has likewise existed side by side with it a counterpart, a magic of the left hand - a goeteia, or goetic magic - having its inspiration from other sources and pandering to unworthier ends. During the Middle Ages the alarm that existed in regard to its prevalence afforded a pretext for persecution and judicial murder, the turpitude of which can be extenuated only upon the plea of a general madness. A result has been that the pendulum has swung to the other extreme. There is now a disposition to dispute the existence of any magic art, and to impute its manifestations to conjuration and sleight-ofhand. Nevertheless, the facts are not got rid of so summarily. They are attested by actual observation of witnesses in every period of history. The phenomena of hypnotism and other psychic displays have afforded abundant illustrations, and scientific experiment has added evidence. We may with good cause assent with Shakespeare to the explanation that "we are such stuff as dreams are made on," and that there are more facts in heaven and earth than are contemplated by a sensuous philosophy. We need not be told that our acts are directed and impelled by our own minds and wills. We have also learned that individuals are able psychically to transmit their thought and purpose, to impress their beliefs upon others, and incite to actions that were not intended before. The story of "Saul among the prophets" is an excellent illustration. Persons moved by strong passion - like hope, enthusiasm, terror, or jealousy - often impel

others to emotions and conduct that they would never have thought of but for such influence. That this mode of operation needs only to be wrought into a system to constitute enchantment seems very plain. The occult, malign effect of anger and hatred upon their objects has often been acknowledged; and there is also some sense in the saying that "curses come home to roost." It is hardly necessary to call attention to the Shamans of Siberia, the "medicine-men" of the North American tribes and the mantrikas of India. The African wizards are likely to achieve greater notoriety. The Obeah seems to be most largely concerned with matters of life and health. Its adepts make great use of drugs analogous to the "witch-herbs" employed by their fellow-witches of medieval Europe;* they also see visions and make predictions. The woman at En-Dor, whom King Saul visited, appears to have been of this class. The Voudou (or Wanga) school is not radically different, but more diabolic in many of its operations. It exists among the colored population in America and the West Indies. Many wonderful things are related of the occult powers of these sorcerers. -----------* The poppy, hemp, nightshade, monk's-hood, and henbane, now much employed in medicine, were used to produce cataleptic conditions. -----------Paracelsus distinguished carefully between the two departments. Magic, or wisdom is the highest power of the human spirit to employ invisible powers and all lower influences for the purpose of good. Will, love, and imagination are magic forces, and he that knows how to develop them and use them effectually is a magus, or truly wise man. The employing of spiritual powers for evil and selfish purposes is sorcery and necromancy. Thus sorcery deals with the powers of the lower psychic nature, and magic with the supreme power of the spirit. "The exercise of true magic does not require any ceremonies or conjurations, or the making of circles or signs; it requires neither benedictions nor maledictions in words, neither verbal blessings nor curses, it only requires a strong faith in the omnipotent power of all good, which can accomplish everything if it acts through a human mind that is en rapport with it, and without which nothing useful can be accomplished. " (Mind, April, 1899) ----------------

THE MYSTERIES - Alexander Wilder "Here what thought could never reach to Is by semblance made known; What man's words may never utter Done in act - in symbol shown." - Goethe

Numerous, and often eloquent have been the pens that wrote of the ancient Mysteries. Interpreters and expositors from Plato and Aristotle to Creuzer and Lobeck, writers of every shade of opinion, have given explanations of their purpose and influence. Nevertheless, despite the multitudes of devoted persons that were initiated wherever they were observed, their secret has been so well kept that they are yet, to a great degree, a sealed book. Like the shield in the story, each writer has described them from his own point of view, seeing only what he had eyes to see, and giving little heed to the explanations of others. While, therefore, we may collate much from them that is worth our careful considering, we are hardly safe in accepting their declarations without qualifying. The secrets of life cannot be well known, even with the aid of matured experience, till death and a profounder wisdom shall reveal them. If they were all comprised in the brief story of being born, of adding new accessions to the human race, and passing to utter extinguishment, then our existence would be but tragedy and sad comedy, "life put to inquisition long and profitless." Faust himself, as he is introduced to us by Goethe, is chafing at such consciousness of limitation. Impatient of being imprisoned inside the boundaries of earthly existence, he finds the possession of superior learning, the reputation of extraordinary professional skill, and the enjoyment of the most desirable possessions, insufficient to satisfy his longing. It was necessary to add a new phase to the drama to indicate the solution of the great problem. Entertaining this conviction, and with conceptions matured by the experiences of a lifetime, the gifted author accordingly produced a Second Part in which the hero achieves a completer development, a holier purpose and diviner conditions of being. It has been supposed that the Mystic Rites had their origin in the worships that existed before. Incidental acts by repetition grew into prescribed ceremonies and stated observances, and the concept of a direct communion with Divinity, which led to a systematic exclusion of the profane, uninitiated multitude. Then, indeed, all that had before been only occasional took new form as symbolic representation and what had been incomplete grew to full dimension. For they who shaped the Mysteries built wiser than they knew. "The Imponderables and Invisibles govern the world." The things which are palpable to the corporeal sense do not have their origin in things that are apparent. Upon this basis the whole structure of the Mysteries was founded. It was the endeavor to make it plain that the labors, the conflicts and varied experiences of the present life have a vital relation to a source and purpose infinitely beyond what we see occurring around us. Hence various rites and observances were maintained, some of them apparently trivial and destitute of meaning, while others were replete with conceptions that were profound and sublime. It must be acknowledged that there were practices in many places at the occurring of these celebrations, that were reprehensible and repugnant to common modesty. But that was permitted after the analogy of everyday life to those individuals who were without perception of what was better. There were often contests of strength and dexterity, literary productions, and dramatic performances. The whole routine was varied in form in order that it might suit the peculiar genius of different peoples, but the ulterior aim was substantially the same. Whether the instruction which the hierophant imported to the neophytes was recondite, or simply awe-inspiring, the intention was to lead them to some cognisance of their relations to Absolute Being, and of divine order in human history, and a divine law in the human

intellect. Like the ladder in the dream of the young patriarch, while standing with the feet upon the earth, the top reached to the heavens. Whenever any mention is made of the Mysteries the attention is at once directed to the Perfective Rites at Eleusis. They were, perhaps, the most complete and best known of any that existed in the earlier historic period. They are reputed to have been celebrated for near twenty centuries, a fact which indicates their serious character and superlative importance. In the Homeric hymn they are described as having been instituted by the goddess Demeter herself to commemorate her bounties to the human race and her grief at the abduction of her daughter by Hades, the overlord of the world of the dead. Traditions have also ascribed their origin to the Amazon, from Northern Africa and the Thracians of Pieria. These conjectures would ally them to the Kabeirian and other worships of the Asian countries which evidently had their focus at Babylon.* Plato, however affords a simpler and in many respects a more plausible explanation. He represents Protagoras as ascribing their origin to the ancient technique of Wisdom. "The men in ancient times who exercised it, fearing its burdensomeness, endeavored to conceal it and to veil it over, some by poetry like Homer, Hesiod and Simonides; others by Perfective Rites and oracles, like Orpheus and Musaeos. ---------* Jeremiah, li, 7. ---------The "Great Mysteries," as they were called, were celebrated at Eleusis in autumn every fifth year. They were, like other parables, capable of a two-fold interpretation. The maid, Persephone, like a kernel of grain fell into the earth, to be restored after winter, as the growing plant to yield its harvest. But in the deeper purport the whole theme related to the mystery of death and the life beyond. The Orphic Rites which were engrafted upon the Dionysia represented the same conception. There was also a minor initiatory observance celebrated annually near Athens, which was preliminary to the sterner discipline of Eleusis. It was preparatory to the other, and its purifying sacrifice consisted significantly of the presenting of a pig that was first washed and then offered before it might go back to its wallow. Those who participated in the Minor Rites were designated mystae or initiates; the more select members who completed the entire probation were denominated ephori and epoptae, seers or Beholders. They are described by Pindar, who flourished at the time of the Persian invasions of Greece, as having learned, in the knowledge of the universe, the secret of life and its divine source. Of course all this was expressed in symbol, and every thing concerned with the Eleusinia was enigmatic and symbolic. It is still a question whether the purport was explained to the candidate, or whether he derived his conceptions of it by his own moral and mental conditions. The first day at Eleusis was devoted to the assembling of those who were to participate in the rites. The second was the day of purifying when all were required to bathe in the sea. On the third the offerings were presented of grain, - barley and a mullet, the latter a gift for the goddess herself, absolutely. In the ancient world as well as in the Hebrew Scriptures, great use was made of puns and resemblances of peculiar words in expression. Occult symbolism was employed in this way in order to facilitate its intelligent comprehending. Thus in this case the muld or barley and the mule or mullos exhibit

Demeter, the Deva Matri or Goddess-Mother significantly as identical with Mylitta, the Mother, in the theogony of Babylon. On the fourth day was the procession of the Basket in honor of the Goddess. In it were the several articles peculiar to all ancient religious symbolism, the serpent always being principal. The next day and night were given to the Torchlight Procession. In this we may perceive the Orphic and Oriental infiltration which seems to have been adopted after the prehistoric period. The search of the distracted Mother for the lost Daughter was commemorated by the groups of participants running to and from in apparent disorder, to figure the course of stars in the sky, while the daduchos or leader represents Bacchus or Dionysus himself in his character of Sun-God. The sixth day, the most sacred of all, discloses the additions more distinctly. As Iacchos, sometimes described as the Son of Demeter, and again as the son of Peresphone, he makes his grand entry into the temple at Eleusis. His effigy, torch in hand and crowned with myrtle, was carried in procession from the Potters' Domain at Athens along the way known as the Way of Holiness, accompanied by a company of Iacchoyogi, all of them crowned with myrtle and beating drums. For a brief moment this group paused at the sacred fig-tree, and then went forward to the place of destination. On their arrival, the herald representing Hermes warned all to leave the spot, except those who were participants in the rites. These then went in, going through a long dark passage. They were required to wash in the consecrated water before coming into the presence of the Divinity. The candidates for initiation were also obligated not to divulge anything which they should see or learn at the sacred shrine. This oath was taken upon the petroma, two tablets of stone, and after it had been administered the hierophant put on the cap and mask of the goddess Demeter and read from them the maxims and instructions peculiar to the occasion. The candidates were subjected to a rigid interrogation in regard to their daily life, fasting, chastity and other affairs. If this confession proved satisfactory a cup properly compounded was given them to drink in commemoration of the pukeon, the draught administered to the goddess in order to mitigate the sharpness of her grief. They were then ushered into the Mystic cave, a large hall of the temple, for the final apocalypse. This part of the Rite was denominated the Autopsia or self-view, perhaps because it was a revealing of the individual to himself as he appeared to others, and the Epopteia, or beholding, because he was now admitted to a full view of Divinity and the sacred symbols. The Cave was now brilliantly illuminated; bright clouds floated over the heads of those present, and apparitions of divine beings and other spiritual essences added to the impressiveness of the scene. Some are of opinion that all these spectacles were produced by machinery, and the juggling of the priests, but though we grant that such was largely the case there must have been, nevertheless, something of the quality and character of actual materializing. Such superhuman manifestations cannot be produced at will, and it may be conceived that the demand of applicants can lead to these artificial devices to meet the requirement. The seventh day was chiefly characterized by a general dispersion of the crowds, and by games of strength, for which the prize was a measure of barley. It does not appear that there was such elaborateness of ritual and ceremony in the earlier prehistoric period. Very generally there was in each city and common wealth of the several countries, a tutelary divinity recognized by the inhabitants as peculiar to the place; and they paid the customary homage and worship as prescribed by the superior authorities. Individuals who

did not belong to the population were excluded from participation. But the opening of communication through commerce and other intercourse led to changes and additions to the rites and legends connected with the worships, and wars of conquest were a powerful factor in effecting radical changes. Nevertheless the family and local customs and festivals long remained beside the more imposing newer order. The historians Herodotus, Diodorus and others declare that the Mysteries in Greece were adopted from the Egyptians. It does not appear, however, that there had been direct communication between the two peoples till the dawn of the historic period. The Phoenicians were the earlier navigators of the seas and mercantile travelers between different countries. There had, however, been wars and invasions of Syria and other regions of Western Asia by Egyptian conquerors, and in turn Egypt, and especially Northern Egypt had been repeatedly subjugated by foreign chieftains. In the seventh century before the present era, Tarhaka the Ethiopian overlord had been dispossessed by Esar Haddon, the King of Assyria, who placed the country under twenty viceroys. After his death these had to the number of twelve become independent rulers. One of their number was Psametik or Psammetichus, of the Family of Saitic kings. He was able by the aid of Ionian and Karian adventurers, to make himself sole monarch, and in acknowledgment of his new supporters he gave permission to foreigners to sojourn in Egypt. This period was characterized by invasions from remoter parts of the continent, revolutions in government and religious worship, and by a new dawn in the mental horizon, philosophic and literary. In this period the early sages flourished - Lao-tsi in China, Gautama in India, Zoroaster in Eran, and the sages of the West. Egypt also participated, and her influence permeated Greece. It is not without warrant to presume that the expansion of the Mystic Observances originated from what had been learned from that country. Hence Herodotus affirms that the principal divinities that were worshiped in Greece, the most of them, had names in Egypt by which to designate them, before they were thus distinguished in the former country. Others have endeavored to demonstrate that they were the same, only under different appellations, but the resemblances are far from striking. The Zeus of Greece, the Amen of Egypt and the Jupiter of Rome may be in analogy as supreme but hardly in characteristic. Herodotus declares that Osiris was identical with Bacchus and Demeter with Isis; but the Bacchus must be the Zagreus of the Orphic rites and Isis in many respects was rather the counterpart of Persephone the daughter of Demeter, and queen of the world of the dead. The actual resemblances were in the rites, rather than in characteristics. We read that the Egyptian priests were religious to excess, and that they were first before the Greeks to establish solemn assemblies, processions, and litanies to the gods. Every city and province had its own tutelary divinities at the same hearth, who were not revered elsewhere. The festivals and secret rites were evidently introduced at later periods. They seem to have been celebrated chiefly in Northern Egypt where there was a strong Semitic influence. Of the various great assemblings, the one at Bubastis is described as having the largest attendance, the number of participants being computed as near seven hundred thousand. The goddess Pasht, who was honored on this occasion was a personification of Isis, and much jollity distinguished the rites. Wine was consumed in prodigious quantities. The assembling was characterized by incessant clamor on the boats. Women shook castanets, and others sang and clapped their hands. As though that was not enough some of the women called for those who were at home, belaboring them

with contemptuous language, while others danced and made unseemly exhibitions of themselves. It is hardly to be supposed that very improper exhibitions were indigenous in Egyptian worship. They were evidently akin to the Tantric rites of India which extended to Babylon and other western countries, even into the Holy Land.* They were not permitted in Greece or Egypt. -----------*Herodotus, I, 199; Baruch, vi, 43; Wisdom of Solomon, xiv, 23; Kings, II, xvii, 9; Hosea, iv. -----------The more solemn of these observances was the festival of Isis and Osiris. The Asiatic origin of this rite is very plain. Not only was there the processions to commemorate the search for the remains of the murdered divinity, but on the night before, every householder slaughtered a hog, as representing Typhon the murderer of Osiris and reminding us of the Syrian Adonis, the victim of the wild boar. We are safe in identifying these rites as the same, despite the differences, which came later into use. The legend, as it is described by Plutarch, undoubtedly is shaded by some historic occurrences indicative of a former foreign occupation of Egypt. Coming in under the mask of comity and friendship the "Shepherd-Kings" seized control of Northern Egypt. In similar manner, Seth or Typhon the brother of Osiris was able to delude and murder his brother, shutting the remains in a chest and casting it into the sea. Then the spouse Isis, distracted with grief, hurries here and there in quest of the body, like Demeter for her abducted daughter. She is finally successful, but not till after innumerable efforts and disappointments. The first gathering of the multitude is described by Apuleius. It is made up of individuals of all social grades, from those who esteem the occasion a most solemn occurrence to those ready to make it a theme of grossest sport. Among the prominent features of the ceremony a priest led with a golden lamp in form like a boat, and the chief priest dedicated to the goddess a ship covered with a hieroglyphic inscription. Another priest carried the sacred ark or coffer in which were the secret utensils of the divinity. There were the emblems of life and stability and samples of the products of industry. The search being over, those participating next commemorate the wail of the goddess. "The whole multitude, men and women, many thousands in number," say Herodotus, "beat themselves at the close of the sacrifice, in honor of a god, the name of whom, a sacred obligation forbids me to mention." He adds, the Karians, the colonists whom Psammetichus had introduced from Asia minor, in their zeal to show that they were a distinct people from the Egyptians, gashed their foreheads with knives. This was a practice of many of the tribes in Asia at funeral celebrations, and analogous religious observances, but was forbidden by later Jewish law.* ------------* (Deuteronomy xiv, 1, 3, 8; see also Amos, viii, 10; Jeremiah vi, 26; Zechariah xii, 10.) --------------

The obligation to secrecy was effectual to prevent any general explanation of an ulterior recondite meaning to the observances. The multitudes that thronged the temples on these occasions, and carried the symbolic furniture were not admitted into the Mystic Chamber. "The many carry the narthex," says the philosopher, "but the initiated ones are few in number." Yet every thoughtful person was conscious that more was signified than was apparent to view. But more even than the obligation of an oath and its penalties protected the secret meanings. It was believed that any imparting of the sacred knowledge to undiscipline individuals would entail calamity. The teaching of Philosophy was at the first guarded in similar ways. Only individuals who had been carefully trained and approved were accepted. It was a maxim of Pythagoras: "He who pours water into a filthy vessel stirs up filth." He accordingly introduced a discipline into his school which accorded with the usage at the Mysteries. Herodotus declares emphatically that "the rites that were called Orphic and Bacchic were in reality Egyptian and Pythagorean." There was not an ordeal of preparatory discipline and purification only. Those admitted to completer instruction were taught the varied scientific knowledge which was then possessed. One of them venturing to tell the theory of the planetary system, was held by Kleanthes, the Stoic, to be guilty of sacrilege for divulging a religious secret. The establishment of the Macedonian dynasty at Alexandria brought new conditions of affairs. The fame of the School and Library attracted the leaders and innovators in religious and philosophic thought from all parts of the world. The influence of association led many times to substantial harmony of views. Old dogmas were found to be pregnant with truths in newer forms. The philosophic teachings of Plato and Aristotle were accepted by the men who frequented the Musaeum, and were adopted into other beliefs. They Mysteries themselves appear to have undergone corresponding changes. In Egypt, Osiris the lord of the world of the dead was known by the name of Serapis, and his characteristics modified accordingly. The Roman conquests in the East had the effect to introduce the Mysteries of Mithras and the doctrines of Zoroaster. These had commingled with the other secret rites, modifying and superseding them. Judaism had a metropolis and temple of its own in Egypt, and now expanded to broader dimensions than were attainable in the older swaddling clothes. The "Gnosis," as it was called, comprised the superior knowledge to which all aspired. The "true religion," as Augustin insisted had never been absent from the world, but in later periods was called by a new name. Alexandria was the literary metropolis of the world. These movements accordingly centred there. Ammonius Sakkas had been a close student and observer of the various divisions of thought, and conceived the possibility of selecting their points of agreement and blending them into a single system. With this view he formed a group of disciples, who he instructed in the doctrine of his new school, obligating them to reveal them only to proper individuals. The secret organization appears to have been shorter lived, but the later Platonists became the most distinguished of all the philosophers that were associated with the recollections of Alexandria. Porphyry was the first to write extensively and was regarded as the leader and representative man of the Neo-Platonic school. He propounded in unequivocal terms that the gods of the ancient worships represented and personified moral qualities, and that the Mysteries themselves were the mode of illustration by symbolic exhibitions of the same things as were taught by the philosophers.

Iamblichus appears to have extended his methods to a broader field. He having been familiar with the Secret Rites extant among the native Egyptians and those of the Assyrians, fabricated a theurgy which admitted them all. He made the Egyptian Rites his principal basis of illustration, though several chapters are deduced from other sources. He recognizes the actuality of spiritual essences, and classifies them in four distinct orders, though sometimes also including several likewise from the Eastern categories. To these he assigned their powers and duties with remarkable definiteness. The oracles also, so long the admiration of the world, and the various faculties and phenomena which are now recognized as spiritualistic, are duly explained, as by a Master perfectly familiar with the subject. Meanwhile he adheres strictly to the doctrine of Plato and his expositions of Absolute Divinity, and Creation, as these are given in the Timaeus. The treatise of Iamblichus on the Ancient Mysteries is the completest explanation of their object and signification that is now extant. It is in as plain terms as the subject permits. The Emperor Julian, himself a philosopher, held this work in the highest esteem. As an exposition of the oracles, daemonian and other spiritual matters, as well as of the philosophy current at the time, it has no superior. It presents its topics to the understanding rather than to the imagination, and the ulterior aim of the author is presented finally in terms both simple and attractive. In a brief chapter of only a paragraph we find it, the eudaemonia, a condition of mind happy beyond ecstasy, and external life wholly pervaded and transcended by the energy and power of the interior will, itself an avatar and apocalypse of Divinity itself. This, then was the scope and purpose of the Mystic Observances, to illustrate the labors of life, its cares, struggles and sufferings; the assuring that it would continue beyond the veil of dissolution, perhaps with its conflicts and its anxious toils, and the bright hope of fruition afterward, when the spirit redeemed from all its ills and besoilments shall arrive in genuine blessedness at its Eternal Home. As Eros intermingled all at the beginning so it develops all the perfects all in the end. (Metaphysical Magazine, Dec., 1907)

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SEERSHIP By Alexander Wilder, M.D. Dare I say: No spirit ever broke the band That stays him from the native land Where first he walked when clasped in day? No visual shade of some one lost, But he, the spirit himself, may come, Where all the nerve of sense is dumb, Spirit to spirit, ghost to ghost. - Tennyson

AS we become conscious of limitations there arises in us a desire to pass beyond them. The future, the invisible region of mind and energy, become themes of contemplation and curiosity. What has been denominated "superstition" has gained its place with human beings, far less from servile and abject impulse, than from incessant aspiration to learn the mysteries of life and its relations with the universe. We dread uncertainty more than the dangers that we comprehend. Much of the fear of death owes its existence to the consciousness that we must meet it individually by ourselves. Much that is experienced by persons in low state of health is due to the consciousness that the problem is to be realized alone with only uncertainty in view. Hence men have lived in all periods of history, who left in the background the ordinary considerations of personal ambition and advantage, and sought a higher wisdom and an interior communion with the potencies that influence the vicissitudes of life. Whether people were cultivated or still under crude conditions, it made little difference. In all communities alike, there have been men laboring earnestly to discern and resolve the problems of existence and destiny. The eager question of the age, "whence and whither?" comes up to anxious attention before other inquiries. Its solution has been sought eagerly through all times. It is the problem of every philosophy. In the multiplicity around us all that can be observed is, the outflow of events, a stream propelled by a lifeless force without aim, purpose, or benefit, from nowhence to nowhither. Justice, goodness, moral excellence, in such case would be but incidents in our own mortal existence, temporary accidents of consciousness brought to view by the attritions of every-day experience, but having little or no ulterior advantage. We are hurried to such a whirlpool of unrest and uncertainty by the specious reasonings of a sciolism which regards only apparent facts, but excludes the causes from examination. It has been easy to cast upon everything transcending the common knowledge, the imputation of being visionary and charlatanic. The fact has been overlooked that the very capacity to imagine the possibility of superior wonder-working power, is itself an argument, perhaps actual proof, that they exist. If there are counterfeits of such powers, there is of necessity a genuine original from which they were copied. The critic, as well as the skeptic, is generally inferior to the person or subject that he reviews, and is therefore seldom a competent witness. He may be content, like the bat, to repudiate the existence of sunlight as beyond knowing, and circumscribe his belief and enquiries to his own night and twilight. True men, nevertheless, while discarding hallucinations and morbid hankerings, and employing caution in their exploration of all subjects within the scope of their comprehension, will always be ready to know concerning what is beyond. There is a faculty of the human soul, which is capable of being roused when the exigency arises for its manifestation. It is dormant during the period of immaturity and spiritual adolescence, and also while the attention is absorbed by matters of the external world. It is capable, however, of cultivation and development, till we are able to receive normally the communication of superior wisdom, and to perceive as by superhuman endowment what is good and true, as well as appropriate for the time. Some may suppose this to be a superior instinct; others, a supernatural power. Nevertheless, it may not always be exercised at will; whatever would force its revealments is very certain to close the perception. There is also constant need for discipline and experience in this as in other faculties. Our powers are limited, and it is more than possible to mistake hallucinations and vagaries of the mind for monitions and promptings from the interior world.

"The mind is our divinity," says the poet Maenander. "It is placed with every individual to initiate him into the mysteries of life, and requires him in all things to be good." In this mind, this interior spirit in the soul, consists our power to apprehend the truth in any immediate, direct and intuitive manner. The faculty of intuition is a power which the mind possesses by virtue of its essential nature, kindred with Divinity itself. In its perfect development it is the instinct peculiar to each of us matured into unerring consciousness of right and wrong, and a conception equally vivid of the source and sequence of things. We may possess these powers by proper discipline and cultivation of ourselves. Justice in what we do, wisdom in our life, and love or unselfish charity and desire in our motives, are, therefore, of the greatest importance. These will bring us in due time to that higher insight and perception which seem as a child's instinct to the possessor, but appear as an almost miraculous attainment to others. Inside of this faculty is everything that really pertains to the prophetic endowment and foreknowledge. Everything of which we conceive as past or future, is mirrored upon the tablet of the Supernal and Infinite and so as real fact is constantly present, an everbeing now. The individual whose perceptions are vivified to the necessary acuteness may thus know, and be able to predict what is to take place. Besides, there are spiritual beings - gods in a minor sense - and exalted psychal natures, that are intermediary, capable of knowing such matters and imparting the knowledge to individuals that are still living on the earth. Sometimes the impressions which are made in such ways, are reflected upon the ganglial sensorium, and so become objective images which the seer may contemplate as being before his eyes. This is the case sometimes when they are associated with an individual, or some other object, at the time. The impression may, likewise, fall upon the auditory apparatus, and so be heard as a voice. So often did this occur in former times, that the Pythagoreans were astonished when they heard a person declare that he had never heard or seen a demon. Ancient writers in every nation have recounted examples of these manifestations. The Hebrew Scriptures abound with them. Ancient Palestine was a country of seers. In the second book of Kings are several accounts of wonderful seership which are amply illustrative. They may not be historic, and it is common usage to explain away and deny such things. Yet if there had not been occurrences of such a character, there would have been no such stories framed. The credulity of disbelievers is often very servile. In the narrative as it now appears Elisha the prophet* is described as entheastic, intuitive and clairvoyant. His peculiar faculty of insight is said to have been brought into activity on one occasion by the playing of a minstrel; and at other times when there were periods of extreme exigency. When the King of Syria made several treacherous attempts to capture and abduct the King of Israel, Elisha on each occasion warned the latter of his peril. The Syrian king was confounded; he had laid his plots privately and could only suppose that there was a secret agent of the King of Israel among his officers. One of them refuted the suspicion. "None of us," said he; "but Elisha, the prophet who is in Israel, declares to the king of Israel the very words that thou speakest in the inner part of thy bedchamber." ----------* The Hebrew term is NABIA, an entheast or inspired person, an ecstatic. The term "prophet" more properly means, one who speaks for another. But the term has become

the appellation of the Hebrew seers and sages, and we with reluctance employ it accordingly. ----------At another time the king of Syria, Ben Hadad, was prostrated with severe illness. Elisha chanced at this time to be in Damascus, and the king resolved to consult him as being clairvoyant, in relation to his prospects of recovery. Hazael, an officer of the court, was sent with costly presents, to obtain the oracular reply. Elisha declared the illness not mortal, but nevertheless predicted the death of the monarch. Then gazing intently upon the messenger, he wept bitterly. The astonished Hazael asked the reason of this. Elisha replied, depicting the ravages which Hazael was going to inflict upon his country and his terrible cruelty to the inhabitants. In vain did Hazael protest that he was a mere underling, and therefore unable to do anything of the sort. "What is thy servant, merely a dog, and not able to do anything so monstrous." Elisha sadly replied: "The Lord hath shown thee to me, king over Syria." Perhaps the best explanation of this subject is given by Apollonios, of Tyana. Like Paracelsus of later centuries, this distinguished man has been described in terms of foulest calumny. But his words are explicit. "I take very little food," says he; "and this abstinence maintains my senses unimpaired, so that I can see the present and the future as in a clear mirror. The sage has no occasion to wait for the vapors of the earth and the corruption of the air to develop plagues and epidemic fevers; he must know them later than God, but earlier than common men. The gods (or superior essences) see the future; common men see the present; sages that which is about to take place. This mode of life produces such an acuteness of the senses, or else it is a distinct faculty, that the greatest and most remarkable things may be performed. I am perfectly convinced, therefore, that God reveals his intentions, to pure and wise men." Volumes have been filled with records of this wonderful power. To reject them would be to discard the faith, the observations, the experiences of every race of humankind. It would be an unfaithfulness and infidelity to truth itself, which a truth-seeking mind cannot afford. The universe of apparent facts cannot wholly eclipse the cosmos of reality. If foreknowledge is possessed by the Deity, somewhat of it may be imparted to others. To be sure, it is an interior perceptivity, and not to be learned from textbooks, but is a something to be discerned when the external senses are silent. But the counsel of Sokrates to Aristodemos is pertinent and deserving of attention: "Render thyself deserving of some of these divine secrets which may not be penetrated by man, but which are imparted to those who consult, who adore, who obey the Deity." There are, and there will be, intuitions into this world of ours from the regions beyond, and there is certain to be a sensibility to occult forces developed which will enable the key to be used by which to understand the whole matter. (The Word, Vol. 3, pp. 241-45, July, 1906) ---------------

The Ethics of Work

- Alexander Wilder The work that we perform is the outcome and measure of our character. However we may speculate upon the subject or seek to evade the acknowledgment, this fact, which we may not elude, lies at the foundation. By our work we make ourselves, and are enabled to realize all that we can really know of life, freedom, and happiness. What we do, that we are. This is true in all worlds and orders of being. Though we store the memory with varied learning, wise aphorisms, and abstruse principles, wearying our very flesh by the accumulations of study, yet they will all be extraneous and foreign to our nature, except as we shall have wrought with them and thereby assimilated them into our substance. I do not like, however, the mode of teaching which inculcates work as a duty. It is a taking of the subject at the left hand and on the negative side, employing a form of compulsion as from external motives. Nevertheless, it may be necessary in the case of individuals who are upon a low plane of development, and for this reason, being still in servile conditions, require the goad and spur. Those who will not, of their own accord, do their part in the several activities of life, must be coerced. Yet labor that is exacted hardly comes within the legitimate province of industry. It is rather like the products of machinery, a result from the applying of an external force. In such case it is not so much the action of the individual, as of the mind and will of another. Being the result of constrained effort, it is more or less irksome, and partakes of the nature of bond-service. Indeed, a feeling of this character is manifest everywhere in the eager passion to avoid laborious pursuits. The fashionable Four Hundred, who are classed as if of no common mold, are envied and even emulated, not as possessing superior moral or mental excellences, but because they are supposed to have no thought or concept of useful industry. The wild chase for gain, which so often leads to madness, is pursued to this end for acquiring the ability to live an idle life and employ others to minister to the wants of the possessor. It is becoming a source of danger. It threatens to wreck the health and moral sensibility of our people. A distinguished German historian has justly declared that "when a man works merely in order that he may attain as quickly as possible to enjoyment, it is a mere accident that he does not become a criminal outright." We have only to look about us and we shall behold this statement verified. In order to evade the requirement of honest work for obtaining a livelihood, every kind of artifice is employed. It is as if we were having everywhere a revival of some modern enthusiastic religion, and the "anxious seats" were thronged by thousands and tens of thousands of agonized inquirers imploring, in one common voice: "What shall we do to be saved from work?" Our social system is in imminent liability of being honey-combed throughout by this general demoralization. The disturbances in the various departments of industry reveal the wide diffusion of the pernicious sentiment. Those who are under necessity to seek employment look out for some occupation in which there will be little to do. Even when there is no success in finding such exemption, the more common dishonesty is perpetrated of attempting to perform the lowest equivalent of work and yet extorting for it the highest wage. A like spirit pervades other transactions. Too often the employer regards the workman as a piece of machinery or some variety of chattel, as one from whom it is lawful for him to procure benefit or service, without the moral obligation to consider in turn the

welfare and necessities of the other. This is but the supreme law of the savage condition of life: "Every man for himself." Such a mischievous sentiment ramifies in every direction. It has converted the operations of trade to a very great extent into forms of gambling, transformed bankers and persons holding positions of trust into common felons, and shaken as with an earthquake the confidence of the people in the probity of the men who make and administer the laws. Civil society vitally depends upon confidence between its members, and such a condition, if not duly and properly rectified, is liable to result in social and even political disintegration. These wrongs are likely, however, to continue in one form or another, with more or less of imminent peril and calamity, until better motives shall inspire and broader intelligence shall enlighten men. Work is the higher law of the universe. It is the outcome of every charity, the essential of all love. All civilization comes of work, as Professor Lesley tells us. The race of human beings that will not work cannot become civilized. The corollary of this is that the individual who does not work is savage. This is equally true of the tramp and the unemployed millionaire. They do not exercise their proper functions in the social relation, and so become in a manner outlaw and out-caste. We may refrain from passing our judgment further upon that intermediary class of people that accept work, not by simple choice and the desire to be useful, but in obedience to duty or the necessity entailed upon them. Every one must stand or fall individually responsible. By civilization is signified the art of living together in society,* and likewise the culture which ensues from neighborly relations. Emerson further describes it as the secret of cumulative power: "It implies the evolution of highly organized man, brought to supreme delicacy of sentiment, as in practical power, religion, liberty, sense of honor, and taste." As superior animals have a more complex physical system and a greater variety of organs, so civilization is characterized by division of labor and the multiplication of the arts of peace, enabling every one to choose his employment according to his faculty, to develop his aptitude, and so to enjoy a genuine liberty. "Countries are well cultivated," Montesquieu has aptly said, "not according as they are fertile, but as they are free." This freedom, nevertheless, is not so much a matter of franchises as of moral conditions. These are the essentials of all progress, prosperity, and human excellence. ----------* The term is from the Kymrk or Keltic preposition, hyv, signifying "together." From this are derived the Latin civis, civilis, civilize, etc., all relating to the estate of social or communal life. ----------Ancient legend, or it may be archaic history, has illustrated this in the accounts of the early colonists of Eran. The population of Upper Asia, we are told, was composed of innumerable hordes of wandering shepherds. Of course they possessed few arts or social regulations beyond the common estate of savagery. Presently a few tribes awoke to the perception of something better. Inspired by the love of permanent homes, they cheerfully accepted honest work as their portion. It was the old story of the Book of the Genesis in actual life. They had tasted of knowledge, and consequently went forth to till the earth and live a better, fuller life. All art is of and from the cultivation of the soil; hence, the people

became allied together in neighborly relations, lived in villages, built cities, it is said, and developed the finer arts of music and social culture as well as the cunning workmanship of the forge and anvil. With their new life of useful industry, these old Eranians also promulgated a purer, holier faith - the religion of industry, truth, and justice. I have always been attracted by the earnest appeals of their great Teacher in behalf of the "good law." It makes the highest virtue and excellence to consist in heroic activity, the courageous struggle of good against evil, and in the pure life characterized by useful work and just action. "He who cultivates the earth with diligence," says Zoroaster, "accumulates by his work a more precious store of moral excellence than he would be able to acquire by uttering ten thousand prayers while idle." His was a code for the busy man and worker rather than for the idler or ascetic. "These principles have never been surpassed," exclaims Jules Michelet, author of the "Bible of Humanity;" "they will live forever, and they will always be the path to the future." Upon them truly have been based the social and moral progress of the civilized world and the fabric of civil society. This religion of work - good thinking, good speaking, and good doing, proclaimed by the Prophet of Eran - has thus existed for thousands of years, never ceasing in its humanizing operation, but modifying other faiths by its contact, and exalting those who obeyed it from the former low estate of barbarism and perpetual warfare into that superior enlightenment which always attends upon industry. Truly, it is a light hidden under all that shines, and its existence is emphatically a standing miracle. Not less wonderful or exalting were the utterances of the later teacher of the "Heavenly Doctrine," Emanuel Swedenborg, at once a seer and a sage. I recall the time when, being myself in deep perplexity respecting the nature and possibility of genuine happiness, I received a pamphlet from a distinguished friend,* containing selections upon that very subject, which he had made from Swedenborg. To be most happy, it was there set forth, is what the powerful seek by power and the rich by riches. Hence, many believed that happiness consisted in an idle life in which they would be served by others. This, however, was a great mistake. The quality of a life without employment was shown to be empty of all enjoyment, loathsome, and hateful, because of its utter selfishness. Said Swedenborg: "Happiness in no case consists in being at rest from employment; for thus every one would be desirous to possess the happiness of others for himself, and as every one would be so desirous no one would posses happiness. Such a life would not be active but indolent, and in it the faculties would become torpid. Hence, without an active life there can he no stable enjoyment, and all rest from work is only for the sake of recreation, in order to enable a return to it with greater alacrity." -----------* Professor George Smith: "On the Nature of Heavenly Joy and Happiness." -----------He accordingly declared that the true heaven and happiness consist in desiring from the heart the good of others more than of one's own self, and in serving others for their own sake from the principle of love without regard to remuneration for so doing. Perhaps, however, if the world and its various operations should be conducted upon such a principle, this life might fall short of being a proper school and gymnasium for the

developing and discipline of human character. There seems somehow to be a need for the trials and conflicts which the existing evils impose upon us. The savage of the South Sea is said to believe that he absorbs into himself the courage and other superior qualities of the enemy that he slays. In like manner we may be confident of possessing the force of every trial and wicked assault which we shall overcome. The conquest of moral laziness and cowardice will thus exalt us to be little less than angels. It may seem, perhaps, to be necessary to live and do according to the conditions about us. Nevertheless, we may cherish unselfish charity as an ideal, and so make it the main principle to permeate our action. Indeed, in the present social condition it is the supreme want. In order to resolve the problems of labor and capital, of employment and compensation, with proper and sufficient intelligence, charity alone will meet the exigency. Without it the most ingenious device of human judgment will fall away into nothing. The various contests between employers and workmen, which are the dishonor of modern civilization, forcibly illustrate this fact. The rich seem not to know, or else are wickedly indifferent, how the poor live; and the poor in their turn have no reasonable conception how the rich work. It would be well for each to understand the other better. For either to regard the other as an adversary and alien in rights and interest is a fatal error. On the part of the laborer, nevertheless, it must be acknowledged that he is too often treated like a dumb animal, overtaxed, brow-beaten, and belabored without compunction. Thus to beat the manliness out of a man is sheer cruelty; but to make him abject, or to beggar him utterly, is murderous. If a brother's blood ever cries from the ground, it is when he is imbruted and dishonored. In this conflict with the workmen, I am very much disposed to act like the poet in Maine, who, not being able to learn the merits of a fight, took the part of the under dog. But I am very certain that, whether right or wrong, the strong arm of power is crushing to the oppressed, who must inevitably go to the wall. The writer Kahalath had rightly described the matter: "So I returned and considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold, the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of the oppressors there was power, but they had no comforter. Wherefore I praised the dead which were already dead, more than the living which are yet alive." - Ecclesiastes iv, 1, 2. Yet, on the other hand, so far as I have had to do with the unemployed, I have too often encountered a spirit even more diabolic. They seem to be from choice at war with their employers. They are often very lax in their conceptions of actual justice. They contend strenuously for limiting the hours of labor, but exhibit little interest in the quality of their work or in the welfare of those who employ them. However much some of the capitalists are to blame in making them slavish and destitute, they are often very slow in their turn to reciprocate the kindness of any one who may seek to promote their well-being. If employers were to pay a week's wage in advance on a Monday morning, I doubt very much whether there would be, as a general fact, sufficient honor on the part of the recipients to induce many of them to remain at work till the coming Saturday. This reluctance, this unwillingness to work honorably, is the "Satan in society." On one occasion, many years ago, I suggested to a young girl, who had just entered upon a dissolute course of life, to abandon it and live reputably. She paused as if in thought, but presently replied: "If I do this I will have to work, and I do not like to work." To me that

answer is full of meaning. It imports no less than this: that the man or woman who is not willing to work is substantially without virtue. A magazine published in Boston some years ago had a very entertaining article describing the ways and doings of the colored population of Virginia, one of whom was represented as being given to shrewd, not to say recondite, speculation upon what he might be observing. One sunny afternoon he was contemplating a group of laborers in a field. He appeared to be in a profound revery. Suddenly, as if a light had burst upon his vision, he exclaimed: "Somebody must do the work!" He had resolved the problem truly. It is a necessity that cannot be obviated. With all the accumulations of wealth and abundance around us, we are but a few months ahead of actual famine. The savage, less fortunately situated, lives constantly in its presence. Work has made all the difference that exists between his condition and ours. It is our savior and deliverer, and deserves to be esteemed and venerated as such. The variety of our industries, growing out of the complexness of our civilization, gives us abundance of opportunity to keep the wolf of famine from our doors. Doctor Johnson remarked that men are seldom more innocently employed than in making money. We have only to contemplate the perils of barbarism, degradation, and famine, to enable us to perceive that the accumulating of wealth is a divine pursuit. It is like the work of Joseph in Egypt, storing the corn of seven harvests, and thereby sustaining the people through the years of aging famine. It does even more, by providing means for the permanent expanding of the field of industry. It enables the opportunities for useful work to be multiplied, contriving machinery, implements, and necessary facilities. It combines the labor of the several workmen, and affords that wise direction which renders work more productive. It goes further, and brings the forces of nature to help and supplement their work. Thus the flowing stream, the water heated to vapor, and even the mysterious electric energy, have been placed in harness to the aid of human effort. In this way wealth has been increased to enormous proportions, and all have shared more or less in the benefit. The cottage of the nineteenth century is furnished with greater elegance and comfort than the palaces of a few centuries ago. I would gladly see the social system existing which shall assure a more general and equable diffusion of the products of industry. So far, however, there has not been the intelligence to plan it or the moral conditions to promote its general establishment. It becomes us, therefore, to wait for our Utopia, and meanwhile to do as we are able with the present state of affairs. Indeed, despite all the rivalships, conflicts, and other evils, the several members of the social body have a common interest, as of brothers and sisters in a family. None of them can be injured or impoverished without impinging upon the integrity of the household. It was an admirable concept, or rather perception, of Swedenborg to assimilate human society to the figure of a man. Some individuals he assigns to one part of the organism; others to different regions and functions. In this way every one has a proper place and office with the requirement to perform properly the part assigned. If we look well over the world, it will not be difficult to perceive that analogous functions and distinctions everywhere exist. It is by no means certain that many things which seem to be unjust discrepancies are such in reality. The foot, even though it be very comely, may not usurp the place of the hand, nor should it be regarded with contempt because it plods upon the ground beneath. Indeed, we have little cause to envy the apparent exaltation of others in rank or social

distinction. There is to every place the imperative obligation of service, and we may rest assured that the one who is chief over his fellows is such because he is actually servant of them all. The matter is no simple question of patent and investiture, but of the law by which all things exist. Indeed, although the king may wear the crown and trappings of sovereignty, the minister at his side may be greater than he, and the one who actually rules the commonwealth. As a general thing, therefore, individuals are in one situation or another, according to their nature and capacity. If we take into view the diversity of aptitudes and mental endowments, we shall find this to be substantially true. There is not any large proportion of individuals who have in a marked degree the faculties for organization and administration. Not often does a king or any one in a responsible position find it an easy task to secure competent persons, who can take charge of every department. "The great mass of mankind," Professor Huxley remarks, "have neither the liking nor the aptitude for either literary, scientific, or artistic pursuits, nor, indeed, for excellence of any sort. Their ambition is to go through life with moderate exertion and a fair share of ease, doing common things in a common way." It is not for such to wonder or find fault because others, making the necessary effort and acquiring by their diligence the requisite skill to gain ruling positions, attain to greater distinction. Under the common law of competition, power and capital will generally fall to those who have the larger capacity for business, and they will take the management of affairs. There is no just cause, however, for any to despise or envy others. The eagle belongs in the sky, and the tortoise upon the ground, yet each is perfect in its own sphere, and happier. It is not necessary or just to have a law of caste as fixed and unmodifiable as that which is said to control the Sudra and Paria. From every walk of life proceed individuals fit to guide the destiny of empires, or to manage colossal enterprises. We should, therefore, favor a broader education, which will not merely store the mind with varied learning, but which will develop its bent and equip it for effort. Little faith need be given to the prattle in newspapers and declamatory harangues about overproduction; but we all should insist upon a broader cultivating of taste and intelligence to make wiser and more abundant use of what is produced. There need be no fear of adding wings to the cat and thereby enabling her to exterminate the birds from the air. But the workman should look upward. He alone can better his own condition. This he can hardly expect to do by strikes and violence, or by cherishing hatred and antipathy. The very employer whom he worries is generally a harder worker than he, besides being often over-weighted with a heavier responsibility. Instead, he can exalt his own life and fortunes more certainly in another field. He can put away from himself that shiftlessness and moral laziness which waste actual advantages and neglect opportunities. He can add to his own culture and stock of knowledge, and thus enjoy and impart the benefits of liberal attainments. He can maintain true and genuine home-life. In these ways he will be not only a most valuable member of the community, but, with higher motive and more exalted intelligence, he will leaven every circle where he may be placed. For, after all, the profoundest perception of a philosopher, or the sublimest utterance of a prophet, is only the familiar experience of the worker doing his part in our busy world. Every one of us is here for a purpose, to do work which others may not or would not do so fittingly.

I was once asked whether I prayed. My reply was: "Yes; with both hands." I believe in no results from heaven which I take no part in accomplishing - no salvation which I do not work out myself. To become rich, popular, distinguished, learned, or powerful, cannot be justly regarded as success, except as means to a higher end. But to make life useful, and to enable happiness to flourish around us, is the most perfect achievement. To this end all work legitimately tends. It is therefore the best allotment which Heaven has assigned to us. It makes us associates and auxiliaries, aye, and participants of Divinity. "My Father worketh hitherto," says Jesus, "and I work." Nor is any work vile or unbecoming which has a proper use. It has been made pure, ennobled, consecrated, by its purpose. Let us, therefore, all of us, accept our vocation heartily and perform its offices faithfully. (Metaphysical Magazine, vol. 2, no. 6, Dec., 1895) ------------------

PSYCHOLOGY

Mind, Thought and Cerebration - Alexander Wilder, F.T.S. The endeavour of the ablest writers on Physiology as well as Philosophy, has always culminated in the recognition of an ulterior principle or faculty which exceeds our scientific methods. It is a private potency of life within or behind our common phenomenal existence, which is regarded as accounting for what was otherwise unexplainable. It corresponds with every fact, satisfies every question, is allied by the most intimate relations to the whole order of the universe and is urgently invoked in extreme emergency. Our sense-perception is employed with what is external and objective, while this faculty appears to transcend common consciousness, and indeed to be dissociated from it. Numerous designations have been invented to denote this occult principle of our nature. Maudsley terms it the preconscious action of the mind, a mental power which is organized before the supervention of consciousness. Agassiz describes it as a superior power which controls our better nature, and acts through us without consciousness of our own. Schelling denominates it unconscious knowledge, a capacity for knowledge above or behind consciousness, and higher than the understanding. It is also very common to style it reflex action of the brain, and automatic brain-work, a brain-activity without thought, but an activity nevertheless, which may subsequently be reproduced in connection with consciousness or thought, or which may, without being reproduced, modify subsequent kindred mental action or thought in the same mind. Dr. William B. Carpenter has formulated it accordingly under the title of Unconscious Cerebration. Beginning with the proposition that the brain furnishes the mechanism of thought, he asserts that there can be no question at all that it works of itself as it were, "that it has an automatic power, just as the sensory centres and the spinal cord have an

automatic power of their own." He declares, however, that it originates in the previous habit. There can be no doubt whatever, he tells us, that a very large part of our mental activity consists of this automatic action of the brain, according to the mode in which we have trained it to action. The will gives the impulse in the first instance and keeps before the mind all the thoughts which it can immediately lay hold of, or which association suggests, that bear upon the subject. These thoughts, however, do not conduct immediately to an issue, but require to work themselves out. The sensorium, or group of nerve-ganglia of special sensations, which have their place at the base of the brain, and distinct from it, may be in a state of inaction all the while, or perhaps otherwise occupied. This peculiar activity of the brain though automatic, Dr. Carpenter does not consider to be spontaneous, or the result of any peculiar inspiration. His theory is simply that the cerebrum, having been shaped, so to speak, in accordance with our ordinary processes of mental activity, having grown to the kind of work that we are accustomed to set it to execute, can go on and work for itself. Unconscious Cerebration is defined by him accordingly as "the unconscious operation of the brain in balancing for itself all the various considerations - in putting all in order, so to speak, in working out the result." This conclusion, he declares, will be the resultant of the whole previous training and disciplining of our minds. He accordingly designates it as the Common Sense. "I believe," he says, "that it is the earnest habit of looking at a subject from first principles, looking honestly and steadily at the True and the Right, which gives the mind that direction that ultimately overcomes the force of these early prejudices and these early associations, and brings us into that condition which approaches the nearest of any thing that I think we have the opportunity of witnessing in our earthly life to that Direct Insight which many of us believe will be the condition of our minds in that future state in which they are released from all the trammels of our corporeal existence." Earnest von Hartmann, the author of The Philosophy of the Unconscious, has given to this subject a greater emphasis. He declares that consciousness has its origin in the cerebral organism of man. It is not a fixed state, but a process, a perpetual change and becoming. Its antecedents are impenetrable to itself, and we can only hope to resolve the problem indirectly. There is no Supreme Being, but an omnipresent Will and Intellect, acting unconsciously in inseparable union with each other, - one absolute subjectivity, a power operating on all unconscious function, human, animal and vegetable. It is the fashion for all writers of the modern school to decry metaphysics; yet with a curious inconsistency they seem very generally to have a metaphysic of their own. Harman is a conspicuous example. He employs the most abstruse and unconscionable metaphysical subtleties to explain and defend his propositions. He defines the essence of consciousness as consisting of a breaking apart of the union between the Intellect and the Will. Perception is forced upon the mind, thus separating and emancipating it from the will and enabling it to revolt and even to subject the will to its own laws. The astonishment of the will at this, "the sensation caused by the apparition of the Idea in the bosom of the Unconscious - that is consciousness." In brief: "the Unconscious Thought does not recognize a separation between the form and the contents of the knowledge, the subject and the object in the act of thinking. It is just here that the subject and the object are intimately identical, or, rather, that nothing distinguishes them absolutely, since they are not yet risen out of their condition of original non-difference."

This proposition of Dr. Harman is a curious illustration of the peculiar agreement often attained by persons holding sentiments diametrically opposite. This writer, who is usually represented as denying a Supreme Being and the immortality of the human soul, is in perfect rapport in his expressions with the extremest Mystic who surpasses all others in theosophic conception. Each declares that the person who really knows does not cognize the fact of knowing, because such knowledge is subjective; and, therefore, may not be contemplated as an object which is in a certain sense apart from us. It would be wholesome for us to learn from this to be just toward each other, generously considering that difference of opinion is a diverse view of truth and no warrant or occasion for animosity, proscription or disrespect. As the rivers, however much they are at variance in the direction of their currents, all meet in the ocean, so all faiths, philosophies and destinies, we may confidently believe, converge in the Divinity. The description presented by Dr. Carpenter agrees after a manner with facts in my own experience. I have been utterly at a loss for words and ideas on important occasions, and they came forth on a sudden at the critical moment, and fulfilled the required purpose. I have often felt myself circumscribed in my ability and endeavour to solve and decide urgent questions. I have noticed this peculiar constraint to occur especially when some other person was endeavouring with much imperativeness to constrain me to give a speedy answer to a proposition. I would experience a difficulty to think clearly, or to perceive what to say or do. There appeared to be no alternative but to seem stupid or obstinate, and abide the issue. In other instances when lashing my own mind to a conclusion, a like impediment would be present. Yet, after a time, it might be short or prolonged, there would bolt into the mind a solution of the whole matter. In fact, I am seldom disappointed in this respect, when I am really in exigency. I do not consider it wise or prudent, nevertheless, to forego any mental effort, in supine reliance upon such necessary aid. It would be a species of fool-hardiness, and would naturally tend to shut away from me the very succor which I counted upon. I have never judged it of any utility to inspect critically the moods and processes which wrought thus beneficially, but considered it wiser to accept the results with a modest docility. One is never quite able to understand the operations of his own mind. Yet so far as I remember, these peculiar exhibitions very frequently, but not always, accorded with the explanation which Dr. Carpenter has made. They harmonized with previous ideas and habits of thinking. The readiness and spontaneity seemed to result from a quick memory, which was roused on the instant. The thoughts and words which came to the mind, were very often shaped after forms of expression which I had written or uttered long before and forgotten. Most persons will probably, therefore, regard the matter as being nothing very wonderful. It is likewise observed that purposes which we have formed, and other vivid mental impressions are by no means uprooted from the mind by being dropped or dismissed out of the active thought. We awake at the time which we have set, and are reminded by a signal of the memory that the appointed moment has come to set about something which we had proposed. I have been roused from sleep to do a thing which I had contemplated, sometimes apparently hearing a voice call me for the purpose, and have often been interrupted in the current of active thinking when awake by the intervening of the occult memory. I have also witnessed kindred phenomena in persons whose external sensibility and consciousness had been suspended by an anaesthetic. Whatever had been

previously expected or contemplated, the idea or emotion uppermost would be exhibited in word or action. Pain, terror, anger, as well as rapture and beatific delight, were expressed as though actually experienced; even as if there had been no interruption of the normal condition. Yet the patient, a few moments afterward, would remember nothing of the matter, and declare unqualifiedly that there have been no consciousness of anything that had occurred. Analogous experiences sometimes take place with individuals in the mesmeric state. Many of the illusions of insane and other disordered persons belong to the same category. The existence of double consciousness indicates the source of many of the curious phenomena, not otherwise easy to understand. "Persons have lived for years," says Dr. William Gregory, of Edinburgh, "in an alternation of two consciousnesses, in the one of which they forget all they have ever learned in the other." Dr. Huxley and William B. Carpenter both substantially admit the same thing. Epileptics have been known to finish, in a new paroxysm of their complaint, a sentence began in an attack which had occurred days of weeks before. Maudsley relates the case of a groom whose skull had been fractured by the kick of his mare. As soon as the portion of bone pressing on his brain was removed, three hours later, he recovered his usually consciousness, and cried out an order to the animal. The absent-minded German professor will not be forgotten, who called at the door of his own house to inquire for himself, and walked away on being told that he was not at home, forgetful that he was himself the man. Soldiers on a march, messengers carrying despatches, and individuals walking for a wager, sleep while in motion. A person stunned will pick up his hat, go about his business, and perform various acts to which he has been habituated. Dr. John W. Draper has endeavored to account for the phenomena of double consciousness, by the conjecture that it is a result of the double construction of the brain. He cites with approbation the treatise of Dr. Wigan in support of his theory. The hemispheres of the brain, we are reminded, are distinct organisms, each having the power to carry on its functions independently of the other. Usually, however, they act simultaneously, the superiority of the one compensating for the defects of the other. Sometimes there is "insubordination of one of the hemispheres," and there are, in consequence, two distinct trains of thought and two distinct utterances, either at the same time, or in very rapid alternation. Each of these, perhaps, will be perfectly consecutive and sane by itself, but the two will be incongruous from being mingled confusedly together. This condition, in its exaggerated form, is regarded as insanity; nevertheless, it has been observed in the thinking operations of persons whose minds are considered as perfectly sound. When one of the hemispheres was entirely disorganized, or had been destroyed from external violence, the other appeared to do the whole work acceptably. There are also numerous examples of the independent action of both hemispheres in instances where the individuals were in a state of health. While engaged in ordinary pursuits which imply a continued mental occupation, we are occasionally beset with suggestions of a different kind. A strain of music, or even a few notes, may be incessantly obtruding. In our aircastle-building, we permit one hemisphere to act, presenting fanciful illusions; while the other witnesses the operation and so lends itself to it. In other cases, these conditions of double consciousness have alternated in a more striking manner. Each hemisphere of the brain continued its action for a period of days or

even weeks, and then relapsed into a quiescent condition. The other took its turn, and ran its own course, after a similar manner. Instances where one of the hemispheres had undergone deterioration or suffered lesion, so that it has been reduced to an infantile condition, and there is incapacity to make use of the impressions which had been previously made on it, the individual will alternately exhibit what has been aptly termed child-life and mature-life. Dr. Draper is of opinion that these phenomena of alternate and double intellection can be explained on no other principle. He is less decided, however, in regard to the explanation of the sentiment of pre-existence in the same way. All the facts however, cannot be thus met. Van Helmont, by experiment upon himself with aconite, suspended the action of the brain; upon which consciousness and perception appeared at the solar ganglion. This indicates that the function of cerebration, or brain-activity, whether conscious or otherwise, does not account for all the phenomena. The statement of Dr. Carpenter, that "mental changes may go on below the plane of consciousness," is but half the truth. There is no single plane of consciousness but a plurality, and the nervous ganglia of the sympathetic system have likewise their part and allotment. His assumption, that inventions and the various phenomena that he depicts, are principally the resultants of the previous action and discipline of the mind, is also faulty. Idiots are by no means destitute of intellectual and moral faculties and at times they display an independent spiritual consciousness. Seager, of Berlin, reports that he has had in his establishment indubitable cases of idiocy, in which the head was small and malformed, yet in which the results of education were so triumphant, that his patients were ultimately able to go forth and mix with the great world, exhibiting no mental infirmity that could be detected. In once instance, a young man underwent the rite of confirmation without being suspected by the priest of any abnormality of mind. Dr. Bateman, consulting physician to the Eastern Counties Asylum for Idiots in England, expresses his undoubting belief that the idiot of the lowest class has the germ of intellectual activity and of moral responsibility. "This germ," he confidently declares, "although possibility only permitted to bud here, is destined hereafter to expand into a perfect flower, and flourish perennially in another and a better state of being." It is manifest that in such case the budding, expanding and flourishing perennially, are resultants of other factors than those furnished by brainprotoplasm. Dr. William H. Holcombe affirms that "consciousness is the consequent of our finite, imperfect state." This is substantially the doctrine of Aristotle, Spinosa and Swedenborg. "Our imperfection is the pledge," says he, "of our immortality, our progress, our happiness, as well as the ground of our consciousness itself." Assuming the substantial correctness of this proposition, we must accept the corollary to it; that if imperfection is the basis of actual consciousness, then that which transcends consciousness must pertain to a higher region. Indeed, Doctor Carpenter appears to have almost conceded as much when he describes the condition which approaches nearest to Direct Insight as resulting from the earnest habit of looking at a subject from first principles, looking honestly and steadily at the True and the Right. An individual can perceive principles only from having their substance in himself; he knows nothing which is totally foreign to his own nature. The insight which is nearest approached by the earnest contemplation of the True and Right is no acquirement of an alien or engrafted faculty, but the evolution of an energy innate in us. It is an awakened memory of a knowledge heretofore possessed. The attainment is

supraconscious and truly divine, but it is not cerebration. It is the self-recognition of soul, enabling the individual to perceive the ideas which it is sought to express by "all the masterwords of the language - God, Immortality, Life, Love and Duty." Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, treating of this grade of mental unfoldment, seems to carry it, and very properly, beyond the province of mere brain-action into the higher department of the soul. "The more we examine into the secret mechanism of thought," he declares, "the more we shall see that the automatic, unconscious action of the mind enters largely into all its processes." Again in Master Byles Gridley's book it is asserted that "the best thought, like the most perfect digestion, is done unconsciously." In different works he abounds with tentative ideas which make us wish he had written more and done it more unequivocally. The story Elsie Venner is based on the quasi-hereditary admixture of an ophidian element with the whole nature of a human being, and the predominance of that quality over her thought, emotions and personal habitude. The vision of Myrtle Hazard is in certain respects still more suggestive. While steadily gazing upon a luminous figure of a cross, which he suggests was an accidental product of decaying phosphorescent wood, she becomes ecstatic. Presently there appear before her the figures of several of her ancestors and with them her own eidolon as though she was in some way outside of herself. They seem to address her and to want to breathe the air of this world through the medium of her exterior shape, which was at the moment apparently empty of her presence and theirs. Presently, she seems to return into it, and then the others to become part of her, one by one, by being lost in her life. She feels the longing to live over the life of her own father and mother, then the peculiar impulses of the others, and finally is in some way made one with the purest nature of them all. Dr. Holmes suggests the explanation that this was "probably one of those intuitions with objective projection which sometimes come to imaginative young persons, especially girls, in certain exalted nervous conditions. He carries the idea further, and remarks that "the lives of our progenitors are, as we know, reproduced in different proportions in ourselves, Whether they as individuals have any consciousness of it, is another matter." This statement almost appears to be a reflection of the proposition of Mr. Frederick Harrison, that every human individuality, though dissolved at death, was transmuted into a moral force, and capable of passing into and stimulating the brains of living men. This peculiar metaphysic is adapted to the concept of an unconscious brain-action, and the further notion of "a distinct correspondence between every process of thought or of feeling and some corporeal phenomenon." But Dr. Holmes does not appear to be thus limited in his prehension. He gives a fuller scope to heredity and even admits the possibility of a further spiritual occupancy. It is possible, he suggests, that our progenitors do get a second as it were fractional life in us. Some who have been long dead may enjoy a kind of secondary and imperfect, yet self-conscious life in these bodily tenements, which we are in the habit of considering exclusively our own. It might seem, that many of those whose blood flows in our veins struggle for the mastery, and by and bye one or more get the predominance; so that we grow to be like father, or mother, or remoter ancestor, or it may be that two or more are blended in us, not to the exclusion however, of a special personality of our own, about which these others are grouped. "We all do things awake and asleep which surprise us. Perhaps we have co-tenants in this house we live in." Kant himself promulgated a similar idea. "Perhaps it will yet be proved," he says, "that the human soul, even in this life, is, by an indissoluble communion, connected with

all the immaterial natures of the spirit-world, acting upon these and receiving impressions from them." Goethe unhesitatingly affirms it. "Every thought," says he, "which bears fruit and has a sequel, is inherent in no man, but has spiritual origin. The higher a man stands, the more is he standing under the influence of the demons. Everything flows into us, so far as we are not it ourselves. In poetry there is decidedly something demoniac (or spiritual), and particularly in the unconscious, in which intellect and reason all fall short, and which therefore acts beyond all conception." Agasiz acknowledge this same psychological fact. He affirms that there are two sets or a double set of mental powers in the human organism, essentially different from each other. "The one," he says, "may be designated as our ordinary conscious intelligence, the other as a superior power which controls our better nature." This latter he describes as "acting through us without conscious action of our own." Maudsley declares that this is a mental power organized before the supervention of consciousness. Whatever he may imply by this, the explanation followed up will carry us beyond the region of simple physical existence. When Dr. Tanner was prosecuting his world-famous forty days' fast at Carendon Hall, in the city of New York, he was constantly attended by physicians who persisted in asserting that his brain was certain to give way for want of nourishment, and predicted that after two or three weeks insanity or delirium would ensue. Yet on the very last day of the fast, he exhibited no essential mental deterioration, but was perfectly normal so far as will and reasoning power were concerned. I was present and observed him carefully with the intent of being certain. It has been officiously asserted in public journals that no important fact was elicited or demonstrated by Dr. Tanner's experiment, that Science had gained absolutely nothing from it. The Molten Calf of Science bedizened with the new-dyed purple robe of priestly arrogance, rejects every truth which happens not to agree with its assumptions or to be elicited by its methods. It can be no gainer, but is a sad loser from the revelations of the Forty Days' Fast. I do not see how it could be otherwise. Knowledge, however, was greatly served, which is a more excellent boon, enjoyed by those who love truth for its own sake. Enough, too, was shown by it to reveal the possibility of preserving the life of President Garfield, if he had had medical attendants modestly willing to profit by such means of information. The maintaining of psychic and intellectual forces intact when all material support was withdrawn from the body and brain except water and air, and the peculiar influences and vital emanations derived from those about, affords evidence not easy to controvert that the human mind exists and acts by virtue of an energy that exceeds matter and its conditions. I do not care, however, a controversy with materialists. They are right to a certain degree, but they reason illusively. The induction of which they are often so boastful is, to a great degree, a barren and unproductive method, incapable of the evolution of important truth. The divine faculty of judging rightly on imperfect materials, transcends it altogether. The inductive method is a viewing of the night-side of nature; and they who employ it exclusively are able only to see a dark matter shutting off all light and knowledge by its dense gloom. We may regard the subject also on its upper side where the sun shines and the bright Truth makes it all luminous and clear. It need give no embarrassment because vital force, nerve-force and mind force are correlated and thus mutually influence each other as well as being interchangeable the one into the other. The important fact, as Mr. Payton Spence has so justly remarked, is the fact so clearly demonstrated by the

phenomena of what has been termed Unconscious Cerebration, "that the unconscious (the sub-conscious and perhaps the supra-conscious) modifies the conscious (human and animal), and that the two become blended into compound states, thus proclaiming their sameness and kinship, and showing that mind runs deeper into matter than is generally supposed." Scientific thought has supplemented these conclusions by foreshadowing the hypothesis, that matter in its last analysis must be resolved into force. "What do we know of an atom apart from force?" demands Faraday. Mr. Spence direct our attention to the fact that matter and consciousness have the relation of cause and effect. There can be no such relation, he argues, except as they are the same in their ultimates. Hence matter and consciousness in their ultimates are the same; and the modification and the thing modified are, in the last analysis, rendered to states of consciousness. "Consciousness is the ultimate, unitary, cosmical constituent." One sole substance underlies the whole universe. That substance is essential life, comprising in it Power, Intelligence and Benevolence. These alone are permanent; whatever is opposed to them is transient, ephemeral and selfdestructive. We are at the superior pole of psychic verity, and hence in direct antipodes to the empirical reasoning, which has seemed to be becoming popular, that would resolve the real world into a synthesis of sensibles, and the soul itself into a consensus of the faculties which observation discovers in the human organism. The omnipresence of consciousness in its several forms, affords no rational basis for the theory that endeavors to eliminate it, and personality with it, from the Supreme Essence. We cognize the entity of Thought behind all sense and organic manifestation. We perceive that death does not extinguish human existence, and that what is beyond man and the universe, is neither void, nor altogether unknowable or unessential. There is no adequate justification for the plaint of Schopenhauer, that it would have been better if the universe had never existed, nor for the more audacious affirmation of Hartmann, that "if God, previous to the creation, had been aware of what he was doing, creation would have been a crime." The energy which inspires and gives law to nature, is not the dominion of the worst. The bad cannot perpetuate itself. The apparent disorder and even misery into which we are born have a benevolent purpose in them. Holmes formulates the idea which we have arrived at: "We all have a double, who is wiser and better than we are, and who puts thoughts into our heads, and words into our mouths." The soul is then to be recognized as the receptacle of the thoughts, which are thus dissociated from corporeal phenomena. The double that originates them, is the purer intelligence. This is the universal consciousness imparted in a certain degree to each individual, and nevertheless, after a manner common to all. There is an ocean, so to express it, of pure reason, which permeates and includes all living intelligences. It is, as Dickens expresses it, a sea that rolls round all the world. We are all in it and pervaded by it through all our mind. It reveals itself whenever the conceit of knowledge which proceed from ignorance, is dispelled. The consciousness is above our sense-perception, and hence whatever brain-agency may be associated with it, is wholly receptive, and cannot properly be deemed or denominated cerebration. It is the partaking of the Universal Intelligence, as our corporeal organism is a partaking of the universal nature. For it matter has no obstruction, space no limit, time no measurement; it transcends them all.

There exists in the various ranks of modern society, a solemn idleness which would make us refrain from all meddling with such matters. Arrogating to itself the honoured title of experience, it would rest everything upon the notion that theoretical shallowness is practical excellence. In this way a degenerate humanity is striving to subdue and overwhelm the true humanity, in order to bring it beneath the power of cultivated animalism, which deems itself superior, and to suppress or pervert the higher instincts; so that of all which has ever borne the name of virtue, there shall be nothing left but so-called utilities which may also be applied to vicious ends. As we become more skillful and scientific, it tends to make us more irrational. It would establish a reign of ignorance which is really bestiality. Its worship would be indeed that of brazen serpents and golden calves, without any veneration for the soul itself; and men of science would minister at the altars. To such a paralyzing, brutalizing lethargy, it is a supreme duty not to succumb. The true soul is eager to know, to have that knowledge which is possessing. This is the highest service which can be given to the human race. It has been necessary and inevitable, to carry our subject from nature to metaphysics, from cerebration to the supersensible, and from both the infidelity of scientists and the cant of fools, to that supra-consciousness which transcends each alike. Herbert Spencer has declared that this consciousness of Absolute Being, cannot be suppressed except by the suppression of consciousness itself. The thought, therefore, which cannot be found to have an origin on the plane of the common conception, must be traced beyond it; we must consent to let physiology be transcended by teleology. All that is vital and valuable to us, is concerned in so doing; and questions of such tremendous importance, may not be left to sleep in the unknown. (The Theosophist, vol. 4, Oct., 1882, Jan., 1883) ----------------------

The Cerebellum or Subjective Brain - Alexander Wilder, M. D. If we can treat of a topic profoundly, and yet in simple verbiage, it will be fortunate. There is a language of priests, Professor Lesley declares. It consists of enigmatic terms and relations which the unlettered commonality may not understand. This may be well in the matter of esoteric truth, but in the field of common facts it is little more than pedantic affectation. "I would rather speak five words with my understanding," says the Apostle, "than ten thousand in an unknown tongue." We likewise prefer to use plain terms and be in rapport with those who think and love knowledge rather than to employ an affected terminology above their comprehension, as though we occupied some higher sphere of thought and condition. It is not so easy, in the case of the matter in hand, to keep to this rule. The difficulty, however, is not of our creating. Only scientific terms exist at our convenience, and we must do with them as best we can, happy, if with careful use, we can make our meaning intelligible. Besides, many will know the matter as well and better than we are able to tell it. We may have to apologize to them, like the young woman, a student in one of our

medical colleges, who somewhat bored the lecturers with unnecessary questions. "I am not doing this on my own account," said she, "but I wish those young men the back row to understand the discourse." Science, as the term is now very generally used, does not so much denote profound knowledge as knowledge that is classified, differentiated and assigned a department. It seem often, therefore, to signify a knowing of parts rather than of wholes. Accordingly, there may be much genuine and profound knowledge that the term is not suffered to include. Many are learned who are not recognized as scientific. That the brain is the physical representative of the man may be regarded as generally known and conceded. When we examine it, we observe that it is parted in two great masses, known as the cerebrum and cerebellum, besides the two portions at the base, denominated the annular protuberance and medulla oblongata. The cerebral structure, being largest and most conspicuous, has received most attention, and in this discussion it will answer to regard its function as understood without necessity of explaining. It is essentially the organ of consciousness, by which we communicate with the world about us; and in our methods of teaching there is often too much attention given to its culture and development to the neglect of the associate organism and faculties. The operations of the brain, we all know, are suspended by sleep: impression, sense and understanding are taken away, and likewise motion, impulse and will. Even when we are awake these powers are often more or less interrupted. There must be some further energy, sleepless and continual, or else to go to sleep would be to die. The cerebellum, with its functions, is ever present to make existence and its conditions permanent. The structure of the cerebellum is familiar to the student of anatomy. The organ is composed of gray and white neurine more or less furrowed and convoluted, and it consists of two hemispheres with a central lobe. It differs somewhat in the various races. The central lobe is possessed by fishes and reptiles, but the hemispheres are characteristic of the higher orders. In its first development during embryonic life, the cerebellum grows like a branch from the spinal cord. Indeed, it seems to be an extension of fibres from the restiform bodies and from the anterior pillars of the medulla. It is hardly philosophic, however, to regard the cerebellum as virtually a subordinate outgrowth of the spinal cord, any more than we regard the branches of a tree as inferior to the trunk. The boughs have the leaves and produce the fruit, and to this function the rest of the organism of the tree is ministerial and subservient. The tree is for the sake of the fruit, and not the fruit for the sake of the tree. It is likewise so with the nerve-structures of the body. The cerebrum, or brain proper, is the capital - that for which every thing else exists. The mind is enthroned above it and around it, as well as being immanent in it. Every cell and molecule, as well as convolution and "region," does duty in one way or another as agent and minister to the understanding and will. When any of these fail and become permanently impaired, the mind is deprived of a necessary means of communication with the physical world, and to that extent subsists apart. Thus, to the superficial observer, it seems to have to that degree, perished outright. But to comprehend this matter clearly one must exercise faculties superior to a negative understanding. The nervous system exists in the muscular organism after a manner analogous to the yolk in the albumen of the egg. It is not continuous with the other structures, but present among them, impacting to them the governing impulsions which inspire and

regulate this action. Its function is intermediary. It communicates between the mind and the body. The mind is the man in very selfhood, the superior organism, and not a will-o'the-wisp moving about the human cerebral swamp and depending upon its vapors for luminosity and existence. The spinal cord is the vehicle of involuntary motions; the sensorium furnishes the medium for emotion and organic instinct; and the "gray matter," the cortical surfaces of the hair; the ganglia are intermediary for reason and will. So each performs its duty; we grow and subsist after a manner like vegetables; we go from place to place and perform voluntary movement, like animals; we think, reason, perceive moral principles and exercise will like gods. Writers and teachers have variously set forth the part of the cerebellum in these matters. Gall and his school have declared it to be the seat of the sexual instinct. Yet the unsexed animal experiences no impairment of the cerebellar structure nor diminution of its size. Experimenters by vivisection of animals and birds have affirmed its office to be the coordinating of muscular motion. They illustrate the opinion by the fact that animals with the cerebellum mutilated retain the power to move voluntarily, but are not able to combine and direct their movements, or even to maintain equilibrium. This is undoubtedly true, but we should look further. The cerebrum, as the organ of thought and will, is the director of activity. The cerebellum, corresponding to it, does unconsciously whatever the cerebrum performs rationally. It follows the states which the cerebrum induces on the organism, and holds the impressions which have thus been made. In sleep the cerebrum lets go its hold. lmpression, sense and understanding are for the time suspended. Similar conditions often exist, to a degree, in our waking hours. We can perceive at once that if the cerebrum alone upheld our vital energies we should die when sleep supervened. But, instead, the cerebellum continues the work, and at the same time our forces are renewed. The giant Antaeus, writhing in the arms of Herakles, found his conflict with the hero-god to be a mortal one when he was lifted and held fast away from the earth. Before that, every time that he touched her maternal bosom he gained fresh strength from the contact. An analogous benefit is imparted to us through the cerebellum. It is an organism that neither slumbers nor sleeps till it yields up life. It is always active. It receives from the cerebrum the various impressions and continues them to their legitimate results. We are thinking and reasoning unconsciously all the time. The mind, meanwhile, has opportunity to set the cerebrum at other work, now that the cerebellum has been employed to finish the task. Hence a fact which is common in our experience, viz.: A matter is brought to our attention which not only requires decision, but likewise due previous consideration. We are conscious, or at least we ought to be, that such decision ought not to be hastily rendered, even though imperatively required. For a time we may reason over the matter in our thought, like Venus "with the fates balancing the contrary fates." Yet, such reasoning is often unsatisfactory, and promotive of vacillation; moreover, it is not easy or wholesome to keep the attention long upon one subject. We are compelled to drop the matter out of our consciousness. In due time, it may not be for hours or perhaps not till days or weeks afterward, we will become again aroused to it and find that we have the solution or disposition of the question clear and complete. In this first instance the cerebrum was not at work, but afterward it was given to the cerebellum to complete the task.

Thus very often the trite expression, that we will "sleep over the matter," is replete with the truest wisdom. Indeed, during sleep, the cerebellum does much of its best work. It has received its impressions and directions from the mind and cerebrum during the period of waking, and it now goes on with them, as the heart, lungs and stomach go on with their functions. Our dreams are thoughts appearing as visible images. Many of them are fantastic, absurd, and even form extraneous suggestion, like the thoughts of Bunyan's Pilgrim in the Valley, which had been insinuated by the treacherous demon at his ear. But there are also the noblest results, both of evolution and inspiration. As the sensory organism pauses in its activity, the higher mental functions are enabled to work more harmoniously. Our thinking becomes cleared up and set in order, and our judgments are rendered more distinct. There also come dreams full of good sense, and even of superior illumination, and we note that our first thoughts after waking are the finest, best and most true. The brain worker, or rather the voyant, finds the hours that succeed immediately after refreshing sleep to be the ones in which he writes, reasons, or thinks best. Sleep washes the sensibilities and assuages excitement and anguish. In this way the cerebellum is the medium and dispenser of health and vigor to the mind, and, we may add, parenthetically, to the body. It performs another office with which we are, perhaps, more familiar. Receiving from the cerebrum the various impulses and impressions made upon the mind, it transforms them into permanent psychic qualities, and they are thus made habits. Pythagoras denominated them a "second nature," as though we had been born over again with them. In this way the results of our activity, study, reflection, observation and experience become instinctive with us and part of our mental being. We observe curious illustrations of this day by day. Men walk the crowded streets of our large cities absent-minded and unconscious of their surroundings, and yet they turn aside for every person whom they meet. Appointments to attend to some given matter will be forgotten, but when the time has come will present themselves again in vivid consciousness. We awake from sleep at the hour set, though we were slumbering profoundly a moment before. "Many tales are told out of school" by persons asleep or narcotized. A whiff of the anaesthetic vapor surpasses Dr. Young's deathbed as "a deceiver of the heart." Individuals entranced by chloroform often say, act and imagine what was in their thought before they breathed the magic inhalation. To be sure, there is abundant room for mistake in these manifestations, and they are not uniform; but the examples are numerous enough to serve for proofs of their general truth. ''Man is captured in sleep," says Dr. J. J. G. Wilkinson, "not by death, but by his better nature; today runs in through a deeper day to become the parent of tomorrow; and the man issues every morning, bright as the morning and of life size, from the peaceful womb of the cerebellum." In culture and experience the cerebellar influence is forcibly exemplified. There are many persons apparently gifted, who seem to have every attribute but common sense. They are inquisitial, ideal, brilliant; but there is want of balance, want of substantial consistency, want of persistent purpose or steady motive. They can talk eloquently, perhaps; indeed, they are often the most garrulous and voluble, but there is no proper basis or backing to make their discourse of much importance. Such may be "high-toned," but they certainly are meteoric. They are impulsive, and often impetuous. The cerebellum

has not due place in their encephalic structure. In a drunken man, also, the cerebellar functions are more or less paralyzed. The religions and philosophies, if they may be so called, which set aside the results of former thought and speculation, have the same deficiency, speaking in s philosophic sense. Mere tearing down of social structures is a ruinous destructiveness, fit for a Hun or a Tartar of the Middle Ages, but it is characteristic of a defective physical and cerebellar organization. Law-making is a function of the cerebral region, but ethics, which determines whether the enactment is intrinsically just and right, pertains to the cerebellum. In short, the cerebellum represents what is superior in us, what is beneficial, what is right. It is an unpretentious organism, the embodiment of that charity which is longsuffering, and neither envious, arrogant, vain, nor presumptuous. Quietly and in silence it does its work, and when it concurs with the will and understanding, it is content to seem to be their servant. Thus it contains and maintains the humanity of our nature; the purpose which makes freedom our right; the foresight which transcends the common prudence and circumspection. In the eloquent language of a sage of this century, man is in the leading-strings of God and Nature, and what is greater than himself, to the end of his career; he is as a little child, whether he benefit by it or not; and the sovereignty of the things above him is represented by an organ or envoy from the Everlasting, planted in his own head, and which as has been sufficiently said, is the cerebellum. Like the ganglionic system, its offices have been little understood. People worship the cerebrum because it is biggest, unthinking that the little things are what confound the mighty. (Metaphysical Magazine, vol. 9, no. 4, April, 1899) ------------------

Heredity and its Limitations - Alexander Wilder, M. D. "We have come to feel Heredity a fate, and inevitable as Fate; yet her inheritance is out-grown." - Mrs. Herndon's Income "Nature disavows Heredity and hacks at it with a two-edge sword." We find this startling affirmation on the first page of a biography, published a few months ago, of Daniel Morgan, the Revolutionary hero. It is no denial, however, of the fact that we all inherit out bodies and qualities of mind and temper from our ancestors, but simply a declaration that when an emergency arises, there arises for the purpose of meeting it an heroic personage endowed above his fellows and gifted with a nature beyond that of his progenitors. The author herself almost says as much: "We like to think that there must have been honor and virtue in the stock that sent forth such a shoot," she candidly acknowledges; and then adds her explanation unflinchingly: "Yet we know of a certainty that the gods were there." There is no denial that Heredity has its place and office; but only that these relate to the common life. When there is exceptional work, there is a higher law than that which produces the individual to achieve it.

The great men, the master souls that have at one time and another fledged themselves upon this earth, appear as so many witnesses to the truth of this declaration. We instinctively recognize those rare individuals who impart to us new modes of thought; who lift or drive us from the prescribed ways of thinking and doing; who inspire to nobler action, and so make over anew the world about them, as envoys from a higher region come on this errand. The ancients voiced this conviction in unequivocal language; and classic story in every climate has described the founders of commonwealths, the reformers of national institutions, and the teachers of superior knowledge, as the sons of God. Romulus, Theseus, Orpheus, Plato, and Pythagoras, great above their fellows, were thus translated to divinity. These remarkable personages, however, do not always appear at our moments of necessity. When the wagon had become deeply bemired through the carelessness of the driver, Hercules did not come at his supplication to relieve the over-taxed oxen. "Put your own shoulder to the wheel," cried the god; "it will be time enough for me then." We may be assured that however much nature may hack at Heredity when it interposes as a superhuman lethargy to check a proper activity, she will always employ it in all the operations of life. The universal law holds good that like will produce its like. Thorn-bushes yield no grapes, and thistles no figs. The fathers eat sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge. A poet of our own day has expressed it: "By blood and brains we are predestinate Each to his own course; and unaware therefore The heart's blind wish and inmost counselor Makes times and tides; for man is his own fate. Nativity is horoscope and star! One innocent egg encloses song and wings; One, deadly fangs and rattles set to warn. Our days, our deeds, all we achieve and are, Lay folded in our infancy; the things Of good or ill we choose while yet unborn." There is more than mother's milk, even with lessons given at the mother's knee, to determine quality of character. The thoughts, desires, purposes - every element of her being that has become active in her former life, all unite to form the child's nature; and this with great definiteness. A trait of the disposition, a feature, a redundant toe or finger, has been engrafted upon a family stock, and continued for many generations. Every individual in respect to bodily conformation and mental tendencies, is very certain to be what the ancestral influence has determined. We find him fair or brown of complexion, tall or short of stature, spare or corpulent of body, serious or superficial in habit of mind. We may forecast with tolerable accuracy, from knowing the parentage, the probable conditions of mental corporeal vigor, the moral proclivities, the peculiarities of taste, temper and character. Heredity determines the probable duration of life, the stature and physical proportions, and frequently the mental aptitudes. The Koran treats of fate - a Kismet the limits of which may not be over-passed. Like the old compacts of human beings with the tempter, it is a decree written with the blood. The conditions include the infant in the inexorable sentence. The Asiatic despot considers

the children of the felon as alike guilty with him, and consigns them to a common death. Our jurisprudence in this respect may be more benign, but in our convictions the many among us are hardly less sweeping. "It often appears in a family," say Emerson, "as if all the qualities of the progenitors were potted in several jars - some ruling quality in each son or daughter of the house, and sometimes the unmixed temperament, the rank, unmitigated elixir, the family vice, is drawn off in a separate individual, and the others are proportionately relieved. We sometimes see a change of expression in our companion, and say - his father, or his mother, comes to the windows of his eyes, and sometimes a remote relative. In different hours a man represents each of several of his ancestors, as if there were seven or eight of us rolled up in each man's skin - seven or eight ancestors at least - and they constitute the variety of notes for that new piece of music which his life is. At the corner of the street you read the possibility of each passenger in the facial angle, in the complexion, in the depth of his eye. His parentage determines it." This inheritance is exhibited in more than general characteristics. In examples where a father has changed his pursuits, employments, mode of living, or even religious belief, the children born at the different periods have exhibited analogous diversities of taste and disposition, sometimes almost as great as if they belonged to other families. The very moods as well as mental conditions are often thus fixed from the first dawn of embryonic existence. "Thy father must have been drunk," said Diogenes to the silly youth. Indeed, the propensity for alcoholic drink, with its peculiar accompaniments has been known to entail itself; thus perpetuating the sins of the fathers upon the children for generations, and even extinguishing the lineage outright. What is more noteworthy, the desire for liquor, when not satiated has been transmitted by a mother, and the emotional excitement of a few moment's duration has shaped the entire outline of a child's nature. Theorists have suggested methods by which to substract the pernicious elements from the sum of humanity. A mass of literature has been accumulated in regard to the nuptial alliances of kindred, and some writers have gone so far as to declare them unphysiological and incestuous. We are required by them to believe in the existence and operation of a moral law upon this subject, which was never known by prophet or patriarch. They overlook the fact that a conjugal relation which would be physiologically objectionable between persons near of kin, would be equally so between individuals of similar psychic and bodily conditions, who were of different families. If this were not so we might presume that some instinct in nature would be present and create a mutual repugnance. The simple fact of kinship, it is therefore evident, does not constitute any such source of evil. The experience of the world, as shown by history is entirely favorable to such intermarriage. The races which have most practiced it exhibit no material deterioration of physical stamina, but have generally advanced in civilization; while exogamous peoples are often of a low type and barbarous. It is a fact, nevertheless, that there exists in the customs of the various countries an indifference in other respects, which is to be deprecated. More heed is taken of social usage and ecclesiastical canons than of more vital considerations. Some scruples may be entertained in regard to race, family, or personal matters, but few care to make further inquiry. There appears to be a total disregard to inherited idiosyncrasies and their possible transmission. Many would scoff at a prospective bride who would attempt to ascertain such facts, regarding her as coarse, and without proper delicacy and maidenly modesty. A man

who should be tenacious in such respects, they would mark as unpractical and visionary. What is usually described as marrying well relates chiefly to wealth and social position, but has too little reference to those matters which are paramount in their importance to human welfare. For example - crime can often be traced to a source among the progenitors of the criminal, sometimes to a physical cause, but more frequently to their moral obliquity. There are hereditary criminals, born of convicts, or of ancestry, whose criminal impulses may have been repressed by the law or may have been indulged, but without a criminal conviction. (See Forum, Vol. II, p. 263) Right here, intermarriage produces its most pernicious results. A nuptial alliance of such persons or with them, is likely to be a breeding source for criminals, and whether their unworthy acts are of a character that will bring upon them the condign punishment of law, or of that more acceptable for that "Society" tolerates or even applauds, the moral degeneracy is all the same, and the likelihood of its transmission to the coming generation. Some have proposed to interfere by law, or equivalent restrictions, to prevent the ill-organized relations. Very much can be pleaded in favor of this severity. The progeny of shiftless and criminal parents are always with us, and we are unable to do them the good which we might, because of their unfortunate inheritance. The multitude of hereditary tramps is increasing in proportions that occasion much alarm. Our prisons and poorhouses abound with inmates whose heritage was of the same character. The inordinate use of alcoholic drinks operates directly to recruit the army of criminals and paupers. It has been conclusively shown that our lower courts are chiefly necessary for the purpose of trying offences resulting from this cause. The sons of the alcohol-drinker are tainted in all their blood, and their imperfect vital inheritance renders them morally weak in their behalf, and to prevent others from similar calamity, our Legislatures are besieged for statutes to prohibit the traffic in spirituous liquors. Doubtless there should be no nuptial union with individuals thus contaminated with imbecility and moral depravity. We ought to go farther, and hesitate in regard to the mating of persons of repugnant natures. The dove may not be wedded to a hawk, nor the eagle to any reptile or quadruped. Hybrids of every sort are in many departures from the order of the universe. We have little toleration for the bat, with its bird-like wings and mouse's body. Conjugal alliances between individuals of diverse blood and temper are very certain to be prolific of evil and to be incapable of becoming holy and sacred. The proper rule, however, would be very difficult to lay down or enforce. Obscure physical causes operate to modify and even to reverse the principles which we imagine incontrovertible. The gifted and illustrious are most often childless. Only the inferior and mediocre are very certain of progeny. There exists a curious analogy between human beings and fruit trees. The varieties which are carefully tended will produce luscious fruit, but only withered and shrunken seeds; while the common stocks that often have but little care will yield a coarse and superior product, but the seeds will be large and plump, and every one of them capable of germinating and becoming a thrifty tree. More than this occasionally some of the fruitage itself will excel the rest, and attain a superior lusciousness, approaching and perhaps rivaling the more favored varieties. In like manner, there are brilliant exceptions in the various families of plebeian humankind. Marriages which are productive of disorder and misery to those immediately concerned will sometimes bring forth individuals of rare merit and excellence. Indeed, we can not withhold the

humiliating acknowledgment that very much of what is generally regarded as superior culture and perfection, is really a physical if not also a moral deterioration, which will eventually debase the lineage, and if not recruited by some collateral intermingling with a family of better vital stamina, will extinguish it outright. This complicates a matter which might otherwise have been considered plain. It becomes a serious question, therefore, whether many of those who have been held in low estimation, and even been socially proscribed, are not endowed with qualities of nature and character which may not be safely omitted from the sum total of our improved humanity. We should act therefore prudently and as appears right to us, but diffidently - in full consciousness that our knowledge has its limitations, which a superior law and a diviner wisdom transcend. The serious defect in the current notion in regard to Heredity comes from the scientific materialism which pervades it. Physical and physiological considerations are uppermost. We are treated to surfeit with conjectural erudition about brain structure, cell development, and the various corporeal accidents. A science, if we must call it so, which has no higher source, will never become philosophic. It will not cease a floundering in the mire. Its chief deduction will constitute our bodily structure and invincible fate which we may not escape or overcome. By such reasoning our entire nature can be little else than an elaborate grouping of chemical elements and properties, capable of a precise arithmetical computation, and all moral and spiritual qualities are but the accidents of molecular arrangements. The fatalism of the Moslem is not more absolute and inexorable. The common instincts of men repel such notions. The moral conviction of the civilized world utterly repudiates them. We are all of us conscious of the ability to act as we choose, and of our blameworthiness if we do wrong. Whatever may be the intensity of the hereditary impulsion, it does not exonerate from responsibility. Common-sense accepts it only in possible extenuation of an offense, but not as an acquittal. When the slave of Zeno pleaded that fate had decreed him to steal, his master promptly replied: "Aye, and to be whipped for it." The plea that Heredity is as fate to determine character and conduct will always be decided in the same way. When Mahomet was four years old, it is related that the angel Gabriel came to him as he was at play with other little boys, and taking him aside cut open his bosom and wrung out from his heart the blood which contained the seed of sin. "How shall a man escape from his ancestors?" asks Emerson; "or draw off from his veins the black drop which he drew from his father's or his mother's life?" The philosopher of Concord will accept no dogma of Heredity as supreme above free will and conscience. Behind every individual, he declares, closes organization; before him, opens liberty - the better, the best. Man is not the automatic representative of his ancestry and the conditions which exist about him. No power can make the past other than that it has been; but every intelligent effort may be employed with reasonable confidence to make the future different from what it otherwise would be. By that effort man becomes the creator of his regenerated selfhood. He works voluntarily, and if we may use the word, supernaturally. By the transforming of his character morally the direct influence and casual energy also operate to clear off the perversions of Heredity and renovate the whole nature by infusing the higher qualities of being itself. What will thus appear to the superficial observer as a new creation outright will be known to the clear-sighted witness as the evolution of the person or more truly himself. The human inheritance which had seemed before to constitute the man in his entirety is

manifest in its true relation as extraneous to the real personality which has now both subjected and assimilated it. In the book entitled Mrs. Herndon's Income a conspicuous example of this kind is portrayed. Meg is a woman whose ancestry for an unknown period consisted of social outlaws and inveterate criminals, and who had herself been reared under conditions thoroughly suited to make her reckless and profligate. She became proficient in her lessons, and would swear, lie and steal with a facility acquired from long and steady practice. Beating and threatening were her girlhood's experience. Fortunately, and without doubt providentially, for this is a story from actual occurrences, she had once, during her immature girlhood, obtained a single glimpse of a better way of living, and had preserved it in mind during those fearful years, hoping that somehow there might be opportunity, even for one like herself, to escape and rise above the evil life. Even under temptation and despair she refused to become abandoned; and finally after passing through the most terrible ordeals and perils, she is at length redeemed from all those evils and entanglements of early training, race, and circumstance. This seems incredible; yet every reader wishes and hopes that it is true. Human-nature revolts instinctively against every dogmatic utterance of hopeless degradation. We never believe in the existence of reprobates except when we are enfeebled in vital energy and moral force. It is not well, however, to regard the matter on the one side only. These examples of individuals who have cast off an inherited mental ataxia and become good and true, are but sporadic. They seem to be sure to prove that ancestral heritage is by no means so potent as to constitute an irresistible fatality, compelling us to virtue or vice as by an iron law. Is it not possible, however, and even likely, that there were impressions made somewhere in the course of the nativity, from some source that has been overlooked? This woman, Meg, is represented as surrounded and involved by all manner of woeful conditions, with all the inherited propensities of a depraved and vagabond race. She could have no salvation, except "as by fire." Yet, if she had been wholly and unqualifiedly evil, she must have been totally and absolutely unsusceptible of better influence, and that fire would then have effected her total destruction. There seems, however, to have been possible redeeming traits in her parents. Her father, had as he was, had a certain disposition for useful industry, and this she, too, possessed. She was willing to work, and though her errors were hard to retrieve, no woman that will cheerfully do honest work is ever wholly lost. Meg, too, had a mother, who is barely mentioned, but who seems to have been of a stock that was less restricted. So there were possibilities for her, even in the lowest abyss; and by the energizing of these she was to outgrow her foul inheritance. Woman-like, she anticipated this deliverance from the aid of a lover's affection and a husband's encouragement. Instead, however, she encountered the most terrible deception; yet, in spite of her despair, she held fast her integrity. Thought "she had been and done nothing but evil," and though fate repeatedly involved her in seemingly hopeless difficulty, her terrible trials were her purifying fire. She came forth from them worthy, true and good. She had not only outgrown her own evil inheritance, but her boy, who had been tainted still further from the pernicious infusion of a viler fatherhood, was also redeemed. The Twelve Disciples, it is recorded, put the question to their master: "Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he should have been born blind?" And the answer was: "Neither he nor they!" An admonition to look deeper than common causality or circumstance. Ancestral influence, and even the personal experience anterior to this mode

of existence, may not account for individual blemish or other peculiarity. The law which governs all is intelligence itself. It transcends the varying conditions of flesh and blood. It is absolute order and fitness, and therefore, never operative to perpetuate that which is aberrant and morbific. There is no law of evil anywhere. Wherever evil appears, it is only as secondary; the imperfect form or else a perversion of the good, having a subordinate office and never of permanent duration. It is protean in shape because it is not a principle of unity. What are called somewhat erroneously the laws of nature, are constantly operating to remove and repair the perversions which have been introduced into lineages by ill habits, vice and other accidents. The principle of life and health, being positive in all the world of nature, is active to resist morbid influences in the human body, to neutralize their results and heal the injuries; nor does it yield till it has been completely overpowered. If this be so, where the matter comes within the range of our observation, certainly we may believe in a more effective energy in that department of our being, which is beyond common human exploring. Very often, that which is manifest to our purblind vision as evil, may be the source and matrix of preponderant good. Even in the matter under consideration, the offspring of an unhappy nuptial union may be great, noble and energetic. The higher law of our life is itself always active to this end, and fully able to relieve us from whatever of fatality may exist in heritage and circumstance. Even though born blind, so to speak, it enables a Divine operation to open our eyes to a world and universe, which many who are seemingly more favored, do not descry; and the debased, corporeal nature, which came to us from our progenitors, it will transform into the similitude of the more excellent. "We have come to feel Heredity a fate, and inevitable as fate," says Mrs. Herdon; "yet her inheritance is outgrown." There seem to be many human beings of whom it may truly be said, that they do not come up to the measure of men. The very diseases that prevail among them, the epidemics that thin out their number, the indifference and apathy which they exhibit toward everything that is not meat or money, are so many manifestations of a degraded heredity. It is the province of the higher soul to put these conditions into the background and to make life worth the living by developing its value. This means more than the overcoming of evil; it is no less than its actual assimilation and its transformation into the higher good. The old geologic nature, which the remoter past has conferred, its reptilian qualities, even its brutal sensualism and treachery are to be converted into the higher intellectual and spiritual endowments, which belong to us by virtue of our nobler heritage from the interior life. For we may count ourselves possessors of a double inheritance - one from the earth and the other from heaven. "The soul is a bird," says the Hindu sage; "it comes in at one window, we know not whence, and flies out at another, we know not whither." We shall be wiser when we comprehend those matters more intelligently, and adapt out action accordingly. Neither men nor nature will be crowded in the compass of a limited imagination. If the future, indeed, molds the past into its own material and quality, then much that we regard as useless and even productive of harm, will be found to be superlatively useful and necessary. All vices are but virtues, perverted from their proper place and function. It is not unlikely that more intelligent action and less arbitrary repression may show us greater facility for improvement than our contracted vision apprehends. Doubtless, the impracticability which precludes the elimination of undesirable

elements from further influence in a family line, is not unfortunate after all. There is a Providence, a law of combinations, analogous to that of chemistry, that contemplates as wholesome and beneficial what we regard as evil and pernicious. "What God hath cleansed, thou mayst not esteem as common or unholy." Heredity is accordingly no arbitrary power shaping out career not is it a Nemesis pursuing us to out doors. We come into existence as out mothers produced us, out nature freighted with qualities which had been accumulated from a long line of ancestry. The Buddha says, that the deed committed in the prior modes of existence also determine out present physical conditions and career. At any rate, every one feels instinctively that he did not begin here. He animates a body with a shape and contour, which was the property of ancestors, and in his action and conscious thinking, they seem often to have incarnated themselves anew. This Heredity constitutes the grand work of his career, but there exists no sufficient reason for it to dominate the rearing of the super-structure. Fate is itself limited; and the conditions of nature are not impassable. "Who ever has had experience of the moral sentiment," Emerson declares, "can not choose but believe in unlimited deeds." Heredity comes to its limits when the human will exerts its freedom. The will is free when its casts off the bondage of corrupt nature and moral imbecility. This freedom is of necessity conditional by intelligence and knowledge. An ignorant or ill-cultured man is always in subjection to his temperament and physical nature, to his circumstances, to all who know more and think more profoundly than he. The truth is our liberator. Its engrafting into our consciousness renders it an essential principle of our nature. Powerful as Heredity may be, its duration is circumscribed by the limitation of corporeal existence. If its dominion is terminated by the dissolving of the body, it is also transcended by the higher intellect asserting its own supremacy over the natural and even the physical regions of our nature. "We know," says Paul, "that if our temporary, earthly house should be dissolved, we have a permanent abode eternal in the heavens, and we desire not to be divested of it; but endowed - that the mortal may be surpassed by the life." To the many Heredity, and with it the corporeal nature, constitutes an imperious destiny, a wall enclosing them on every side; but the noble and the intelligent go from the top of that wall into the complete life. (Phrenological Journal, April, 1887) ------------------

Human Character - Alexander Wilder Prof. Tyndall says: "It was found that the mind of man has the power of penetrating far beyond the boundaries of his free senses; that the things which are seen in the material world depend for their action upon things unseen; in short, that besides the phenomena which address the senses, there are laws and principles and processes which do not address the senses at all, but which need be and can be spiritually discerned." In saying this, the learned empirical teacher necessarily set aside with one swoop the whole dogmatism of agnostic metaphysics and placed himself for the moment beside

the philosophers who recognize man as a being subsisting beyond body organism. The laws, principles and processes which are infinitely beyond the province of the senses are those to which the world of sense must be forever subordinate. Sir William Hamilton affirms the same thing more positively than Tyndall: "The infinitely greater part of our spiritual nature, lies always beyond the sphere of our own consciousness, hid in the obscure recesses of the mind." Taking the same yogi view, Socrates, as he was holding his last discourse with his friends, uses the following language: "When the soul endeavors to consider anything in conjunction with the body it is led astray by it. It reasons, but then, when one of these things - hearing, sight, pain or pleasure of any kind harass it - it retires as much as possible within itself, taking leave of the body, and so far as is possible, having no communication with it, it aims at the discovery of real truth - of that which is." The process here contemplated is one far away from that of committing to memory and digesting it. Professor Carpenter has named it "unconscious cerebration." The name, however, is a misnomer. Cerebration is the activity of the brain; and the activity of the brain is the evolving of sensation. When, therefore, no sensation exists in any matter, there is no action of the brain; consequently no consciousness. There is therefore no such thing as an unconscious cerebration. We may as well talk about dry moisture or a fire without caloric. There is a knowledge which pertains to the physical senses, and we call it empirical; there is a knowledge which transcends the senses, and this is philosophical. One is apparent, the other real; one is a mere collection of phenomena and things which are witnessed by the senses, while the other belongs to the higher region of causes and motive. Mr. W. H. Mallock has propounded what he considers a missing science, a department of knowledge which has not been formulated and so brought within the scope of textbooks. As it comes under the head of Psychology, though perhaps on the ethical side, I am justified in considering it. This so called "missing science" he gives the designation of "the science of human character." It involves the whole mainspring of human action. It recognizes the fact that no two men have the same history or character, and yet that many, even hundreds and thousands, will often act in concurrence, as though moved by one single will. We witness such unanimity in uprisings of the people, in mobs, and other demonstrations. The conduct of the whole is the exact resultant of the motives of all the individuals combined, each supplying his part of the force and swayed in his turn by the united force of the others. As logic is the science of the laws of reasoning, so this is the science of the laws of action. It is well, however, to begin by defining what character means. I would consider it as the sum of an individual's qualities, that which marks him. It differs essentially therefore from reputation. That means what the public think of a person; character, what he actually is. One may possess a poor reputation and yet have an excellent character, or the reverse. Mr. Mallock seems to amplify a little: "We may say," he remarks, "that we mean by it susceptibility to motive, or we may say that we mean by it the development and the organization of impulse." The structure of society is the outcome of the structure of human character. A man's life is the expression of his motive. Desire, will and action make up everything. So, in its last analysis, civilization is the organization of motive.

Man without a motive is a mere lifeless mass. I remember well when a certain individual was attempting to lay out for me a course of action. I replied: "What I need in all this is motive." He said: "Heaven." At once I replied: "Heaven seems to me as a myth." It was too intangible, in the way presented, to be more than a word. I knew neither what heaven meant, or what he meant by it, and to be dogmatized over upon vital questions is like giving a stone to a child hungry for bread. The fact is that through motive only are actions influenced. Hence every individual has his own incentive, his own reason for action. There is no fusion of motives when two or more individuals act together. A million persons have a million wills. Yet every motive is the result of antecedent facts, and in order to understand these we need a knowledge of biography. When men have distinguished themselves in some extraordinary manner we seek for the ordinary manifestations. We learn the substance of patriotism from the biography of the patriot; of sanctity from the biographies of saints. In order to understand democracy, we must know the lives of the men who lead the people. When a man preaches unselfishness, we look to ascertain how he practices it; if he advocates equality, we want to know whether he does not really desire inequality. We remember that Napoleon and Julius Caesar were democrats, and Maximilian Robespierre the inflexible adversary of the death penalty. It is well to remember the apt words of Bulwer Lytton, "Our thoughts are the divine part of us, our actions the human." I would not reject the diamond for its flaw. Nor would I, because a man's motives were tarnished by personal considerations, reject all the good which he sought to do, as not being really good. I expect our humanity to be mingled with all that we behold of divinity. In most reforms we find personal spite, and sense of individual wrong, envy or jealousy, a disguised effort at self-aggrandizement. There is danger therefore, that the success of the reformer will be a new form of the old abuse. Political reform is too generally to get you out and me in. Religious reform is a change of priesthoods. Yet out of all fluctuations the world moves on. While we asperse reformers for their flaws of character, their energy often accomplishes reform more radical than they had contemplated. The combined action of different individuals with motives a world apart, often accomplishes a good which few or perhaps none of them had contemplated. Then, again, as our natures are complex, our motives are likely to be. I protest against the cant and stale declaration that every individual is led and controlled solely by selfishness, in the baser sense of the term. I lecture here, not as giving my labor, for this is justice to myself and a wrong to others. I am influenced by the compensation which I hope to receive and which I greatly need. I must pay my debts; he who neglects to do this is immoral and a thief. Yet while I insist upon this consideration, I recognize the higher obligation to do my work promptly, cheerfully and efficiently - and to the best of my ability. In this I am governed by a higher motive, that of justice, moral obligation, and a desire to do what is right. The great teacher whose doctrines constitute the belief of a third of the human race, Buddha-Gautama-Siddarta, taught that "truth is to be spoken, self to be sacrificed, benevolence to be exercised, not for the sake of the good thus done to others, but solely for the effect of this conduct on the soul of the actor." It is a deeper principle than is imagined and not so destitute of a rational basis as many would suppose. The highest idea to which the Judaic and Christian religions have attained is to love one's neighbor as himself; that it is of no benefit for a man to gain the whole world and lose himself. The

foundation of all motive and moral action is duty to self. I may wrong you, and then keeping away from your presence, avert a quick sense of reproach; but I cannot escape myself and the injury which I have there inflicted. My integrity, my wholesomeness, my health, is impaired by my wrong-doing. I cannot be entirely pure and happy when doing wrong. Even my countenance will reveal that I am sunk beneath my proper level; that I am degraded. No amount of apparent advantage can make me good for that. Hence, there is no reward for doing right; it is itself the reward. Nor need we hound a man much for wrong-doing. His tainted nature is the greatest punishment that can be inflicted. Selfishness is laudable in the infant. It is all that he can do to eat, keep comfortable and grow. If he omits these, he is certain to be fit for nothing. Even the adult who does not provide duly for his own wants disqualifies himself for proper service to his fellow man. The Yankee is not so far aside from the mark in regarding shiftlessness as the sum of depravity. It is in this very soil of selfishness, all black and full of foul sediment as it seems to be, that all higher motive is planted and rooted, like the beautiful pond lily in the slime of the stagnant pond. All moral ideas are the outcome of the instinct of self-preservation. They are implanted in man and developed, as they are in no animal, because man is eternal and the animal is not. Without immortality there is no morality. The obligations which I sustain to my neighbor are founded upon our common life. If they terminated at the grave, all the incentives we could cherish would be those of the brute, to conquer and devour. There being no higher motive than selfishness in its grosser form, rapacity and cruelty would be laudable. Paul, the great Christian Apostle, has taught better than all others - that charity, or love to the neighbor, transcended everything else and was man's highest motive, most sacred obligation to himself. No action is possible except it be prompted by some form of self-interest. If the individual is circumscribed by his individuality, then his motive is selfishness in its completest, basest form. If he includes others, if the welfare of many is embraced in his circle, the greater breadth relieves it of that characteristic. If the whole world be included, then it is charity, benevolence, good will to man, which is the one pole of human motive circling round to the other. The desire for progress, to advance, illustrate what has been propounded. We form the concept with the imagination, which is itself inspired by desire. The reasoning faculty then decides the means to accomplish, and the will sets the matter into operation. Yet how differently each man acts. One man desires wealth, labors and saves, in order to obtain it. Another will steal, lie and defraud. Our delights are conditioned by our imagination. What pleases one is odious to another. This is owing to psychic differences. Curious as it may seem, corporeal needs are first in point of time. We must have food, raiment and shelter. Where these are not supplied in a commonwealth, there is a volcano liable to burst out at every man's feet. The average man will always work for food. If he wants a house he will work to build one. So far motive is limited to inevitable appetite, which being satisfied we must have higher intellectual development or there will be no more labor. To this limit the word practical applies. The imagination now comes in to widen the field of desires. Taste requires more elaborate furniture and adornment; but that taste is incited by a desire to please or rival others. It recognizes the presence, the influence of others; and affords more incentives for labor, as well as the exercise of skill. The conjugal, parental, filial and neighborly relationships, develop the sense of delight in giving pleasure to others and aiding in their

enjoyment. We become broader, more intellectual, nobler, as we are more kind, more generous, more well-wishing to each other. The highest intellect is developed in company with the highest morality and benevolence. Whatever we may think of the religious and the visionary, both these classes are wider in their scope of view and imagination. The world, since history, has known no moral, social or intellectual advance, except where one or both took the lead. Wherever the medical profession has neglected these motives, it has become crystallized, selfish, servile and base. A code of ethics in which morality and the other principles of human advancement are overlooked, is a barbarism. By morality we mean that which is intrinsically right. It is action which is everlastingly fit and worthy and useful. It is a hot enthusiasm for doing well. It is emotion, passion, desire, all aglow to add their contribution to the welfare and happiness of human beings. It is living in perfect conformity with conscience, that conscience being a lively conviction of what is just and a thorough knowledge of the reality of things. Kant explains it as "acting in such a manner that the ruling principle of your action might become an universal law." Herbert Spencer defines it as "the mode of conduct, which, under the conditions arising from social union, must be pursued to achieve the greatest welfare of each and all." In short, it is the highest evolution of the psychic essence in man. (The Word, vol. 18, no. 3, Dec., 1913) --------------

Psychology and Physiology - Alexander Wilder It is out of undue deference to psychologic tradition, Dr. Carl Lindorme remarks, that the brain is exclusively dwelt upon as an organ of the mind. In fact, it is an abuse of this term, "mind," to restrict its meaning to the sense of intellect, or more strictly to that of the understanding and reasoning faculty. Such a restriction, he insists, is in obvious contradiction to the plainest facts of every-day observation; for "it is literally and logically incontrovertible that there is not one organ in the body that is not an organ of the mind." The vagueness of the term is evidently due to the fact that it is made to stand for a number of words in other languages. In old English, the mind is simply memory, thought, understanding; and its Greek equivalent, menos, denotes disposition, inclination, eager desire. The term phren is of a very similar purport, as are also thumos and epithmumia, which Plato employs to define the mortal part of the soul. Even the Sanskrit manas, which is of the same origin as our own racial name, denoted the heart - the seat of the emotions. Thus far, therefore, the hypothesis of Professor Lindorme is amply sustained. The Egyptian priests considered Man as of a sevenfold nature. He consisted of the kha, or corporeal nature; the ba, or breathing impulse; the khaba or shade, the sensuous principle; the Ren; the akhu (manas), or perceptive faculty; the patah, or intellectory quality; and the spirit, or noetic faculty. These seven were comprehended in the eighth, the ka, pleroma, or collective essence of the whole. In the New Testament, the word "mind" is made the equivalent of several Greek terms that are by no means alike in sense. In the Pauline Epistle to the Roman Christians, for example, it is used for the noetic principle, or ruling thought (i, 28; vii, 23, 25); and

again for the phronema, or sensuous principle - viii, 6, 7, 27. In the first Corinthian Epistle, another term, phrenes, comes in use: translated by the Revisers: "Be not children in mind; howbeit in malice be ye babes, but in mind be men." Here plainly the emotional nature is signified - the loving, hating, fearing, hoping, resenting, forgiving. Of all these, as the Greek term implies, the physical seat is at the ganglionic center beside the stomach, and all the organs are their representatives. The late D. John W. Draper affirmed that the only possible route to truth in mental philosophy is through a study of the nervous mechanism. We must hesitate to accept of so sweeping an assertion. There is a strait gate with a narrow way leading to that which is the higher, although "few there be that find it." A wider gate and broader way, which the many choose, will lead us to the knowledge that is of "the mortal part of the soul." It is not the best or most desirable, but it has value of its own. Nevertheless, we do not abate a whit in our insisting upon the great importance of comprehending thoroughly the nature and functions of the nervous structures. They extend from their respective centers and focal points to every part and corner of the body, imbuing it with the vital force, enabling it to subsist, maintaining it in its activities, and also constituting the intermediaries by which the pleroma, or entity that feels, thinks, and wills, communicates with every fibre throughout the whole. We may regard the ganglionic (or sympathetic) nervous system as being, in a manner, at the foundation of the corporeal edifice. It is the first to take shape in the embryo, and the last to die. So far as is known, it is possessed by all animals, and it may be by plants, as well as by human beings. Every sensibility, affection, and excitation of the moral nature refers itself to the solar ganglion as its source. "I feel that my life has passed from my brain to the epigastric region," said a dying man to Doctor Kerner. "I have no more consciousness of my brain, and no longer feel my hands or my feet; but I see things in which I had never believed, and am not able to describe. There is another life!" In this instance, nevertheless, it is apparent that the brain, or rather the mind within it, was still active; else the life beyond would not have been perceived. This ganglial foundation is not itself an end, but is for the superstructure. An acephalous child, having no brain-organism, is a failure in the economy of creation. No provision exists for the purposes of its existence. The brute animal also comes short, because the brain is but partly formed and there is no ability to think and reason, much less to perceive intuitively by higher faculties. If we lead a dog through a public library, he will see all that we can see; but no training or instruction can be imported to him that will enable him to form any idea. He is not human, but only a dog; and his nervous structures are subservient to the limitations of his canine nature. We must look beyond the body to its superior in the head. "As concerning the soul," says Plato, "we are to consider both its mortal part and its divine part; also in what way it existed, and in what way as well as why it was placed in a separate habitation. The truth respecting this can be firmly established by the consent of the Deity only." The fact here stated is cognized by us intuitively. The brain, or, to speak more precisely, its gray substance, is the organism that is occupied and operated by the "divine part." It is a collection of little ganglia, or masses of neurine, more or less dependent on one another and associated in their functions. It is aided by the cerebellum and other structures of the spinal cord, but it alone furnishes the conditions for the manifestation of the various faculties.

The rest of the bodily organism is subordinate. The ganglial system carries on the functions that are essentially vital, and is accordingly the seat of the affections and emotions. All structures - brain, eyes, neck, heart, liver, mesentery, and abdominal organs - have chains of ganglia and networks of nerves to keep them in normal life; and every blood-vessel is lined with a membrane of nerve-material. An effect of this is that every emotion at once produces its influence at the central organ, and accelerates or retards the circulation of the blood. We know the deathly feeling of fear, the stimulus of joy, and the blood-disorganizing result of excessive anger. Disease is the result of morbific emotional conditions; and such distinctive ailments as cancer, consumption, and chronic gangliasthenia, or "nervous prostration," have their inception often in the blighting of a fond hope, some mental shock, or the wearing occasioned by an aimless life. Sometimes death occurs instantly upon sudden excitement, or from distressing news. The converse is equally true. The function of these nerves is to minister vital energy, to procure the supply of deficient force, to remedy what is lacking whether from wear or disease - in short, to keep the life intact. Much of this is done subconsciously. The body is repaired and made whole by the agency of sleep, or, perhaps more correctly, during sleep. We aid or deteriorate one another by our normal or abnormal mental conditions. Mesmeric manipulations demonstrate this forcibly. Thus "virtue," or dynamic force, is described as passing from Jesus when the woman with a hemorrhage touched his garment; and her faith saved her, or made her "whole." If we are cheerful, kindly disposed, and full of charity, we infect others. Health is far more contagious than disease. It is undoubtedly true that a nervous fluid, or nerve-spirit, exists and operates in the various nerve-structures. All the solid parts of the body - bone, muscle, cartilage - end with the nervous system. This, at the same time, is so generally distributed that if we could separate it from the grosser structures and leave every one of its fibres and ganglia in place, there would remain still a perfect figure of the body. Indeed, we are not sure but that it would constitute the greater part of the material of the body. The source of this nervespirit is in the brain itself, and it courses like lightning to every part, however minute or remote. The mind (or soul), operating by the light of its intelligence, forms a purpose. This instantly passes to the sensorium beneath, and thence to the organ required to carry it into effect. The thought will quicken or slow the pulse, and add strength to muscles or take it from them; and we may as well say at once - it daily performs miracles. We have a mind in common with animals, and a mind properly human. Indeed, there is a variety of problems to be determined. We have a twofold brain - a right and left hemisphere, corresponding in many respects to the distinct characteristic of the sexes. With the man the right hemisphere is masculine, the left apparently feminine: while with women this is reversed. We have the abnormality of effeminate men and virile women. Goethe has commemorated the ewig weibliche, or ever-woman-like, that leads us all to the higher and better. In other cases, one hemisphere will be active and the other quiescent, exhibiting singular phenomena. Then, likewise, there are diverse manifestations of moral quality, like what is illustrated by the story of "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," which is a classic. At times, perhaps, we are ourselves "unco good," and apparently ready for an ascension-robe and a journey upward in a chariot of pure light; then, again, the earthly and base may seem to pervade us through and through. We can only comfort ourselves by remembering that the

province of our life on the earth is to bring these things into relief, and to purify by our discipline. The lesser brain, the cerebellum, has a most important office. Various have been the conjectures, and their solution has been vainly attempted by vivisection. The sexual instinct, the "muscular sense," and the faculty of harmonizing the movements of the body these are the more common guesses. It behooves us, however, to look further. The movements that depend on the brain and spinal cord are necessarily intermittent. Sleep suspends the functions of sense, understanding, and impulse of will. Fortunately it does not interfere with the action of the ganglionic system; else there would be no digestion and assimilation, no nutrition, no circulation of the blood, no breathing. Indeed, we have been compared to "living corpses" when asleep. Yet we are conscious that this is hardly correct, or even admissible as a figure of speech. The cerebellum never diminishes its activity. It is the watch-tower of the mind; its keeper neither slumbers nor sleeps. Here, in this department, the mind is always at work. By the brain and its auxiliary spinal nervous system, impressions are received and held for decision; but they incessantly pass from consciousness and give way to new percepts. The cerebellum performs the duty next devolving. It serves as the register of the mind, and completes the work which had only begun in the brain. Silently and unconsciously (or subconsciously), every problem is resolved, conclusions are evolved, and decisions made. Presently these are carried to the brain, and the results made conscious to the external being. We are aware of this in many ways. We find our thoughts more bright after sleeping; we feel that our judgment is clearer and more correct when we have slept over a proposition. The mind has plunged from the surface of our nature into the deeper principles, and comes forth again invigorated in all its faculties. The organism of the body is adapted, as we perceive, to the various functions essential to its preservation and normal activity. We have no doubt that the shape of every part is necessary to the office which it performs. The soul of a human being must have a body of human shape as well as human form. From the brain as a center the spiritual radiates to every part; the lungs generate the physical force; the digestive apparatus, including the glandular bodies, prepares material to renovate the structure; the blood transports nutritive matter to every part, and dissolves and removes that which is effete and noxious; and the skin holds all together and maintains a healthful equilibrium. But it would require a volume to enumerate and explain all. In short, the human body is twofold; there is the "earthly house," and the "house not made with hands" that belongs to the world beyond time - one transient and the other permanent, and each correspondent to the other. We have placed the greater stress upon the nervous system, because it extends from the one to the other, inspired with life, thought, and will from the psychic realm and transmitting the force to the natural - thus joining the two into one personality. (Mind, Feb., 1898) ---------------

Relative Characteristics of the Sexes - Alexander Wilder, M.D. An humorous writer in the Atlantic Monthly, in 1859, discusses the question: "Ought women to learn the alphabet?" Sylvain Marechal, in the reign of the first Napoleon, proposed the question in 1800, in a tract full of humor. He cited the Encyclopaedia and Moliere for his authorities and argued at length against female authors, Madame Guion, Sappho, and de Maintenon. Finally we are brought to the Chinese proverb: "For men to cultivate virtue is knowledge; for women, to renounce knowledge is virtue." By English law, "the wife is only the servant of her husband," which is backed up by the old Hindu code of Manu: "A man, both by day and night, must keep his wife much in subjection that she by no means be mistress of her own actions." Prior to 1789 the girls of Boston never were allowed to go to school. A large number of the women of Massachusetts could not sign their own names. A certain deed of settlement once executed to my own father, was signed by the aunt of Dr. Nathan Allen of Lowell, by her mark. It was found in Boston that the summer attendance was but about half of winter. So, in order that the schoolmaster should earn his money, a resolution was adopted to let the girls attend. Behold, the first year that the United States ever had a President, the first school girl of Yankee land made her advent. The alphabet was turned loose like a roaring lion among the girls, seeking whom it might devour. It was a good while later before they had a chance in the High schools. Yet we are not to suppose that these obstacles were created for any special selfish purpose. Laws grow as well as nations. They can hardly be said to be made. There has been no serious fear in regard to feminine delicacy, destroying the domesticity of women, nor of confounding the distinction between the sexes. To utter such reasoning seriously is absurd. I know that Channing, Fenelon, Lessing, and Niebuhr so talked; and that Theophilus Parsons and Froissart laid it down gravely as maxim. Voltaire of old and many of our modern rational writers have taken like views. Paul with the Korinthean women is fully supplemented by others of the present day. The actual reason which has lain at the bottom, has been a contempt for the inferiority of women as intellectual beings. They were not to be taught, because they were not worth the teaching. From Aristotle to Dr. Edward H. Clarke, this has been the foundation fact. Now, Plato thought differently; so did old Pythagoras; so did Louis Agassiz, the scientist, and Cornelius Agrippa, the alchemist; and so wrote Mrs. H. Mather Crocker, the grand daughter of Cotton Mather, and Abigail Adams, the daughter of old Parson Smith. Three centuries ago a French lady wished to establish a girls' school in France; for which she was hooted in the streets, and her father called in four learned doctors in the law to decide whether she was not possessed by devils. To think of instructing women might be a work of the devil. To be as beautiful as an angel and as silly as a goose, was the old-time standard of excellence. Later still, in this country of ours, there have been other utterances. Jean Paul Richter says: "A woman is a human being, and neither the maternal nor the conjugal relations can supersede the human responsibility, but must become its means and instrument." The son of Abigail Adams also said: "The correct principle is, that women are not only justified, but exhibit the most exalted virtue, when they do depart from the domestic circle, and enter on the concerns of their country, of humanity, and of their God."

Buffon says: "Les races se feminiscent" - the people of the world are becoming more womanlike. Does this mean that our civilization is improving us and making us better, as it makes us more like women? Or the converse, that we deteriorate as we become more cultured? It is considered that a greater vitality is the evidence of improved conditions. Women have always as a sex had the greater vital, and I almost believe, physical power. In the prolonging of average human life in civilized countries, from seventeen to thirty-six years or thereabouts, and the increasing of comforts, the approximation of female conditions would seem to be indicated. I believe that what is logically right is right in practice - that every principle of natural right ought to be carried out in governmental and social conditions. What any human being is able to do well, it is his or her right to do, against the whole world. Much argument has been expended on the fact that men and women are not alike. It does add largely to the attractiveness of this world of ours, and I guess of every other world, that they are not. Herbert Spencer has made a curious declaration, that women, especially during the child bearing age, exhale a smaller proportional amount of carbonic acid than men, and so evolve less energy. Hence they fall short in the intellectual and emotional faculties, the power of abstract reasoning and that most abstract of the emotions, the love of justice. We will not, however, follow the great sociological apostle further. Our business is with another department of the subject - the relative characteristics of the sexes. We want principles to think by. No common consent of any body of individuals, however fortified by power, custom or authority, can always override. In physical nature, men have large brains and comparatively a less amount of ganglionic nerve-structure to support it. This does not, however, seem to have been the fact in ancient Egypt. The great use of brain, by itself considered, is to make a noise with. Human history is the noise that mankind have made. The male sex has principally made it. Perhaps that is one reason that we know so little about the other sex. Yet history is a very sorry achievement. It is a record of wars and crimes, not of peace and virtue. The nation that never had a history to write is essentially the happiest and most fortunate. Women are more emotional and less practical, is the flippant remark uttered on every hand. I do not like this word practical. I doubt a man's honesty who uses it much. The hard logic of practical facts has always enslaved men, robbed labor, and made a hell of life. One great reason why modern religion has romanced so much about heaven, as old religions never did, is because men had made such a hell, a home of devils, a den of everything foul and obscene, of this world. Perhaps this is one reason why so many women build all their hopes on a future life. As for the emotional nature, we find it at the substructure of all character. Except it is laid broad and deep we cannot hope for much that may be built upon it. There can be but an indifferent quality of intellect, where there exists not strong affection, passion, earnestness. The perception of what is right demands a love for the right; perseverance in any cause of action demands first that it is the right and the best. There can really be such thing as a superior mind, where regard for truth, for right, for the best in policy and action, do not minister to its incentives. If then, women are really more emotional than men, they have the stronger basis for an evolution of the higher, diviner intellect. Either it is destined, accordingly, in the higher development that the human race is to attain, the female sex is to be foremost in its culture and social structure, or the males are to become

a something higher and diviner, because of a genuine alliance and cooperation with the other in the great work of the world. In such discussions, we may disregard the foibles and follies of the present period of transition. We are flowing, not crystallizing. It is certain that the church is full of women. All religions are. Men make the forms of religion and women accept them. The physician, too, makes his harvest on women's weaknesses. If he is not very scrupulous, he even seeks to increase their number and extent in order to promote his own thrift. We know from this, why the intruding of women into the medical circles, has been deprecated. Women cannot make surgeons, says one; they cannot be depended upon in extreme cases of obstetric trouble, says another; we all know better. I know what "bluffing" means, and how sensitive persons are cowed by it. But it proves nothing. Having been myself largely instrumental in the opening of the American medical schools to women, - more so than any man now alive in this country - I have watched this matter, its failures and successes, with deep interest.* I have no romantic faith in women. Their shortcomings, their petty jealousies, their little envy, their readiness to malign and beat down one another, their great incapacity to forgive, their want of self-reliance, I have observed and believe. I know not whether they are to be remedied. Certainly not very soon. I do not expect any change of nature. I look for a fuller knowledge of the purposes for which that nature has been so produced; and suspect that the very faults we complain of are distorted and misplaced virtues which we have never understood. At any rate, I am not disposed to straight-jacket them, because I do not know by what they have been so constituted. Let them take the field, qualify for it, fill it as they best are able, and abide the results. For the more active sex that have carried on the labor and conflicts of the world, we accord the usual male characteristics. The masculine head is higher and broader; the muscles firmer; in physical strength the males surpass the other for immediate energetic effect, but are inferior in dynamic persistent force. In psychic endowments, they are more aggressive, revolutionary, penetrating. All innovators are men. The epic poems, the constitution of states, the devices for instruction, forethought, are rather male than female. Social order, protective law, everything that tends to the idea of sacred, is female. Liberty, however, is more than dissatisfaction with that which is: it is a principle. --------* This article, never before published, was written by Dr. Wilder nearly forty years ago. But Dr. Wilder did not write for the day only. - Ed. [H.W. Percival] (The Word, vol. 18, no. 4, Jan., 1914) -----------------------

HISTORY

The Economics of Health - Alexander Wilder

Salus Populi Suprema Lex. The proposition that the welfare of a State or commonwealth, is vitally dependent upon the physical soundness of its people is so plausible as almost to make demonstration unnecessary. Every disabled person is a drawback upon the energies of those around him and to that extent a permanent source of weakness to the general body. He requires care, protection and maintenance, while consuming the proceeds of the labor of others and rendering little or nothing in return. It is very plain logic that the individual who is of no benefit to those around him has little claim to their good offices. A community burdened with an undue number of unproductive members cannot long sustain itself. In the event of war it must capitulate to the enemy; and even the period of peace beholds it crippled - unable to carry on remunerative industries ample to nourish those belonging to it, or to make due advancement in social, material, and much less moral and intellectual pursuits. In what are often styled the primitive forms of society, there has been a ready solution to the problem. Every form of society has its outlaws, for whom many seem to regard it a merit not to care. The prison and the scaffold are monuments of the failure of institutions to do their work aright. But crime was not the only token of outlawry. Those who fell short of meeting the social requirement, in regard to the general defense, whether as the result of misfortune or wrong-doing, have also been thrust more or less outside the pale. Under the pretext that self-protection is the first law of nature, the feebler members of the community have been made the first to suffer when peril impended. If the means of subsistence were hard to procure, the new-born children were sacrificed, the girls being the first that were put to death. Sickly and deformed babes had the very worst of chances. In some communities the infirm and even the old were doomed to a similar fate. More usually, however, the veneration paid to a father as the priest and patriarch of his family served to protect him from the economic slaughter; but childless men, old and sickly servants and other dependents, were seldom permitted to live for an extraordinary period. As patrician and priestly families acquired supreme power, they monopolized the advantages of the social system, and compelled the people and especially the servile classes to endure the penalties and hardships. There exists a community in Peru, apparently aboriginal, but not allied to any other native tribe or people, where this matter of disposing of unproductive members has been elaborated into a system. Not only are the aged members put out of the way as they become infirm and burdensome, but whenever any person falls sick a committee is sent to visit him and ascertain his prospects for early recovery. If their report is not favorable, the elders of the country send the public executioner to strangle him. In the Island of Keos, in the Grecian Archipelago, a law existed, Strabo informs us, which required every man on attaining his sixtieth year, to put an end to his existence by drinking the juice of hemlock. It was accounted for on the pretext that the Athenians once besieged the City of Kartheia and brought the inhabitants to such straits as to effect the promulgation of such a decree. But the story is improbable. Kartheis, an the name imports, was a Phoenician city, and the sacrifice of life for religions and even economic purposes was not unusual among the Phoenicians. Indeed, the early Pelasgian Greeks seem to have had analogous usage, and human immolation and the exposing of children were immemorial customs. The worship of the god Poseidon was characterized, till the

period of Herakles, by these rites. The compulsory suicide of old men in Keos was some relic of ancient custom. Some such sentiment has been imputed to Sokrates. He was a philosopher, and therefore, believed that no one had the right to commit suicide in order to escape the ills of life, not even excepting those of old age. Yet he almost appears to have invited his judges to condemn him to death. He repeatedly thrust himself upon the attention of the supreme authorities knowing them to be inimical to him; and finally, when he was accused he declined the service of an advocate who offered to defend him. It was not difficult to procure a reversal, or mitigation of his sentence; but he chose to let his judges pronounce the extreme penalty, refusing to ask commutation by fine or exile, or even to escape from his prison. It may be that the ancient notion was still cherished by him, that exile was universal outlawry and manifold death; but it seems plausible that he cherished the sentiment that he had lived long enough. If only the authorities took the responsibility, he was ready for the rest. The policy now more commonly denominated military necessity, prevailed in the classic period, almost universally. Whoever originated the maxim that the public safety is the supreme law, it has been carried out to an extent far beyond the limits of common despotism. The garrisons of towns have driven out the old and helpless to perish from famine beyond the walls. Even in comparatively recent periods this was regarded as justifiable. More anciently the necessity of constant preparation for repelling the attacks of enemies, was regarded as warranting the massacre of all who were unable to defend or aid those defending against invasion. We are informed by Herodotus, that the Babylonians, at the death of Kambyses, set out to achieve independence of the Persians. When preparing for the contest they put to death their supernumerary women. First of all, every man spared his mother, and then made selection of a favorite wife. The other women were conducted to one place and there strangled. The women thus chosen, our author assures us, were kept to make bread for the men; while the others were strangled that they might not consume the stores. Wrong-doing is infallibly certain to have its own Nemesis. In due time the destruction of children was followed by its natural consequences. The adult population became too few to defend their country, as well as unpatriotic from being enervated by luxury. Sparta, where child-murder was enforced by statute and slaves were systematically massacred to keep down their numbers, went eventually to decay. A penury of men, Polybius the historian declares, had rendered the cities of Greece deserted and the fields uncultivated. Tyre, Sidon and Carthage were destroyed because they had not citizens of their own to defend them. Rome, in her turn, became the prey of her barbarian legions. Italy and Northern Africa were depopulated of their own yeomanry so that their invaders, the Northmen and the Moslems, found little difficulty in over-running the lands that had been swayed by Caesars and a Hannibal. The statesmanship which deprecates the increase of human beings, and regards animals and material wealth as more desirable, will always culminate in destruction, if not arrested in its progress. Human life is the great purpose of creation, and whatever cheapens it, or in any manner detracts from its utility and enjoyableness, militates against the order of the universe itself. Political economy rightly comprehended, is not merely the science of wealth and national prosperity, but includes the welfare of all the population. Failing in this last and most essential particular, it is defective throughout. Temporary expedients and makeshifts are characteristic of the

charlatans and empirical statesman that aspire to dictate the policy and control the affairs of so many modern commonwealths. Civilization differs from savagery in its social ethics, its superior regard for human life and human welfare. Political economy cannot rise to the dignity of a science except by fulfilling this condition. The very least, whether a babe, or cripple, or houseless wanderer, is embraced in its purview as entitled to care and protection. It contemplates no waste or destruction of life, but the evolving of a policy which shall open to everyone a career of activity and usefulness. Hence it may be uttered as an axiom that the care taken in a community of its various members, is the unerring index of its civilization. As the world advances these views are extended over a wider vista. We can readily perceive that they comprise the principles of justice and equity: the common right of all, to the extreme of permitting all, without let or hindrance, or even distinction of persons, to act their part and receive their share of the benefits. They include active as well as passive virtue. Enlightened self-interest, as certain publicists express the ideas, requires absolutely and imperatively a fraternal and generous care for the well-being of others. Any other policy is short-sighted and fails inevitably to realize the wants of the body politic. Where one individual is neglected and suffers in consequence, his example and influence, and even his diseases are likely to contaminate others of the community. Perfect harmony of action in all the social forces and faculties, is the end to be sought for in all human endeavor. This is, therefore, the focal point of civilization. To be civilized is to have the virtues and qualities of a citizen, to be fit for citizenship. It is an essential element to regard others as equal, and claim no superiority. Nor does this comprehend the whole idea. To be a good citizen in the larger sense requires to be ready to promote the public advantage by wisdom, energy and effort at the risk and cost of personal sacrifice. Fraternity, justice and courtesy are all implied; what comes short of these is savagery.* -----------* Prof. Francis W. Newman: Barbarisms of Civilization. "It is a modern development out of the verb civilize, which, of course, meant nothing but to make civil. Thus we are thrown back on to the adjective civil - Latin, civilis. If we can rightly expound this, we can hardly fail to interpret civilize aright. Notoriously a civilis animus is the opposite of a regius animus (kingly temper), which to the Latins suggested the claim of lordship and privilege, nay, a spirit haughty and high-handed. On the contrary, he who was Civilie had the qualities of a Civis, the virtues of a citizen; especially, he treated other men as his equals, his peers, and claimed no superiority; hence the popular English idea of Civility. Not only so, but he was a good citizen in a larger sense; ready to sustain the public welfare by wisdom and energy at the expense of personal sacrifices. Surely we need not hesitate to accept as a true interpretation, to to be civilized means to become thus fit for citizenship. If we try to step further back, and ask, What was the primitive idea of the word Civis with the Romans? our ignorance of early Latin embarrasses us. Yet in other cases also (whatever be the cause) the Welsh or the Irish language gives indirect suggestions. Here we find that the Welsh Cyf (sounded Kiv) is comparable to Greek sun and Latin Con, Cun. Words beginning with Cyf occupy twenty columns of Richard's Welsh Dictionary. Cyfulle means conjux, husband or wife, a partner, a fit match. Cyfail means a friend, a comrade, alter idem. This reminds us that those who were full

Spartan citizens were called homoioi, the equals, the peers. By such analogies the present writer is persuaded that the idea of Cives among the Sabines, from whom it probably came into the Latin, was Partners and Equals in the community. Out of this the sense of the adjective Civilis flows naturally, and comprises the notions of 'fraternal, just and courteous.'" The Greek equivalent polis, in like manner, gives us such verbs as, polite, polish, politics and political - all of analogous meaning. -----------The Greeks of the more cultivated states evinced a lively sense of this great virtue. Political economy with them was religion and the science of patriotism. Their laws guarded carefully the inviolability of private households and family altars, and required each person of mature years to have a calling by which to provide for his subsistence. Their remedy for pauperism was to arrest its progress in advance, - a forcible contrast with British and other modern systems, of which poverty, crime and disease, are the necessary and inevitable outcome. The Athenians went farther and held every citizen to the obligations of civil life. He might not refuse office in the State nor a summons for military service. If he endeavored to shun these requirements, and was devoted chiefly to private ambitions, seeking gain and advantage for himself alone, and despising whatever related to the benefit of others, he was designated an idiot. In the classic language of Xenophon, devotion to self-interest, when associated with contempt for science and liberal arts, and characterized by disregard for the general good, was simply but forcibly denominated IDIOCY. It was a form of savagery, cropping out in a civilized community. By Political Economy is denoted all knowledge that conduces to the prosperity of a country, and the proper methods of its application. Mere abundance of material wealth is not the principal idea, nor even the accumulated means of protection and defense. It includes everything that tends to assure the perpetuity of the commonwealth and the welfare of all its members. It is by no means the perfection of statecraft to provide armies, maintain order, facilitate industrial enterprise and encourage popular education. Political economy cannot attain the height and dignity of a science except by fulfilling all the conditions of a mature civilization. More important than costly schools and lucrative industries, than arms and armaments, is the existence of wholesome sanitary conditions. It is impossible to create or assure prosperity, where there is not salubrity of the atmosphere and physical vigor among the people. Health is the important factor of individual and national greatness. In the history of nations we find this forcibly illustrated. In earlier times the seat of empire was by turns upon the Euphrates and the Nile. Egypt, we are assured by Herodotus, was the most salubrious country of the world; and Southern Assyria was the traditional paradise of Eden. But there came a change. War and conquest put an end to the former sanitary conditions, and all the countries of the Orient have long been deserts, the repair of wild beasts, or hot-beds of pestilence. Syria, Armenia, Asia Minor and the neighboring countries which have become servile and impotent, from misgovernment and the plague, take their sorry revenge by incubating pestilence and transmitting it to the other regions of the globe. Roman cupidity sowed the earlier seed, which Turkish rapacity has assiduously cultivated. Once the Campagna was full of cities and alive with human activity. The Tarquins made Rome habitable by constructing the famous Cloaca, which drained a lake and

converted a large area of marshy ground into a wholesome district. But after their overthrow the Romans became conquerors, and destroyed all the communes about their city. An exemplary revenge was superadded to this intolerable rapacity. The malaria, like the unclean spirit that had gone out, now returned to its former abiding-place, and the last state became worse than the first. The annals of medieval Europe are a sorry record of disasters, of cities devastated, countries made bankrupt, and the inhabitants carried off in myriads and millions, by the waves of pestilence which followed each other with a regularity almost incredible. The establishment of the new "Holy Roman Empire" was the occasion of these manifold horrors. Gothic Paganism and Arian Christianity were annihilated by the sword of Charlemagne and his successors; but with the new worship and political institutions came likewise the vices and diseases of the South. Small-pox, the plague, and syphilis, were the boons which Italian benefactors conferred upon the Teutonic peoples. Life was well nigh worthless by reason of the general lawlessness and the recurring invasions of epidemic. Every country was more or less depopulated. War and the crowding of the squalid denizens of the towns into circumscribed localities, were often the occasions of spontaneous outbreaks of pestilence, against which no adequate means of protection were attempted or even understood. For a thousand years the population of Europe was stationary. Wars almost continuous, famine alternating with them, and pestilence recurring as statedly as the seasons, prevented human increase and arrested the progress of civilization. The people became little better than savages outright. Hardship, privation and disease kept every country wretched and sparsely inhabited. The surface of the continent was covered with forests, and the lowlands were undrained and reeking with miasma. The cities of London and Paris were mere collections of wooden houses, unfloored and abounding with filth and vermin. A pile of rubbish and garbage stood at every door. Men, women, children, dogs, hogs, goats and other animals slept in the same apartment. Personal cleanliness, even among the dignitaries of the State and church, was utterly unknown. The first Stuart king of Great Britain, and Thomas a Becket, of Canterbury, were notorious for being unwashed and lousy. The profuse use of perfumes was resorted to in order to conceal the odor of impurity. In the famine of 1030, human flesh was bought and sold; and in 1258, fifteen thousand perished from hunger in London. The conflict of races and religions, which existed for centuries, was frightful from its massacres and other atrocious cruelties; but the encounters with disease and pestilence were infinitely more terrible. There seemed to be an apocalypse of the rule of Death and the insatiable Grave, where power had been given over a fourth part of the earth to kill with sword, with hunger, with mortal disease, and with wild beasts. For ten years, from 1345 till 1355 the Black Death ran riot over Europe, and destroyed a fourth of the population. In 1348 it entered France and exterminated a third of her people. The ensuing three centuries constitute a history of successive pestilences. An array so formidable, mortality so apparently inevitable, blanched the very hearts of men. Literally there was "upon the earth distress of nations with perplexity: men's hearts failing them for fear and for apprehension of the things that were coming," from which was neither escape nor redemption. They became mad in their despair, and the ties of social life snapped asunder. Many forsook their families for the convent, others plunged into wild excess, often too horrible to describe, from the sequences of which the world has not yet recovered.

Our record of visitations is unfortunately not scientifically complete. It was plague, the Great Death, that so often depopulated Europe. But the distempers so denominated have not always been accurately determined. Sometimes it was a frightful form of variola, "the black small-pox," which is represented as having come from Arabia and Africa with the Moors. Again, it was a typhoid seizure, typhus with buboes, one of "the diseases of Egypt," which foreign invaders had transplanted into that most healthy of countries. These are maladies that, like fungi, have repeatedly sprung up spontaneously in foul places, as where armies are long kept together or the population congregated too thickly. No imported contagion is required in such conditions for any of these visitations. The Thirty Years War originated small-pox and distributed it over Germany. After the Black Death came Syphilis. It may have been some other seizure raging like epidemic and hidden from sight as well as perpetuated under the name of plague. It appeared four centuries ago among Spanish troops in Italy, and was spread with the speed of a visitation of pestilence to every other country of Europe. The Pope, Leo X, the King of France, nobles, clergy, and common people alike contracted the pest and those who were attacked died in prodigious numbers. Three and a half centuries have run their course since that infamous period; and there is abundant reason to apprehend that the taint of blood from that one cause alone is not yet eradicated. The condition of the population of Europe was wretched. Every country was impoverished and empty of men. When William the Conqueror held the sceptre of England, the country had about two million inhabitants; five centuries later the number had doubled; but since that period, the increase has mounted up to ten times the original enumeration. The average length of human life, four hundred years ago, was leas than eighteen years; but now it is about thirty-six. In the better-governed countries of the Continent there has been a like increase and improvement of conditions. The last outbreak of the Plague in England, took place in 1665. Its ravages in London are portrayed by De Foe. The next year came the Great Fire which seems to have destroyed the remains of the pestilence. It disappeared at once, and under the sanitary improvements instituted by Sir Christopher Wren, has never again appeared. The material results of this great renovation, added to a governmental policy generally sagacious, are manifest in the political, industrial and commercial greatness of that country. The supremacy held in turn by Venice, Spain, Holland and the Hanse-towns, is now exercised by the bankers and merchants of London. The lesson thus inculcated has also its illustrations in this country. The health of the people is the supreme law. No country can arrive at prosperity or long remain prosperous, where the permanent conditions are insalubrious. An individual, to acquire wealth must be of steady and industrious habits, thrifty, and above all those, healthy. If he is weakly and enervated, he cannot labor and acquire; and when he is prostrated by sickness, what he has earned and saved must be expended. In a sickly family, no matter how great their industry, thrift is impossible. That family must be poor. Sickness is the most costly of all luxuries. It impoverishes wherever it exists. What is true of families and individuals, is infinitely more true on a larger scale. No sickly community can be prosperous. If it is moral or intelligent it does well; but it will not be so long. The rapid accumulation of wealth which has characterized our modern period, has been the wonder and admiration of the students of political economy. The working capital of the world has more than tripled in a lifetime. Another index of prosperity has been the

large increase of population. Many are fond of saying that our progress in material and other advantages surpasses all former time. But of this, I am uncertain. An ancient world once existed that we have never emulated or equaled in mechanical ingenuity, scientific research or physical comfort. Nevertheless, the accumulation and aggregate savings of the last few decades has more than equaled those of thousands of years preceding. Much has been attributed to machinery, to the employment of steam, to the greater facilities of transportation and commerce, to the application of science to the arts and manufactures, to the greater abundance of the precious metals, and to the benign results of the general diffusion of knowledge. It would be sheer fatuity to underrate the benefits which these agencies have conferred, and it is impossible to appreciate them justly. With all their drawbacks, and the price which the inexorable law of compensation requires to be paid for every boon, these benefits are inestimable. No Egyptian pyramid has been built; no Tower of Babel points to the sky; no Mount of Ellora has been honeycombed for miles by excavations for religious sanctuaries or human abodes; nor have men explored the place where the Rokh and the Simorg had their eyrie. But the stream turns the spinningwheels and weaves our textile fabrics; the hissing water swelling into vapor propels vessels on the ocean and caravan-trains over the continents; the sun, regent over our system of planets and asteroids, has become our limner to paint portraits and copy landscapes; and the electric ether, summoned perhaps from the outermost star in space, now carries our messages and even speech itself, hither and thither, and is ready to become our minister to abolish the realm of night, to establish perpetual day, and perhaps create a new order of seasons. The great factor enabling all this has been already named. Political changes have only aided; Science was but a minister. This marvelous increase of wealth, this prodigious achievement, this general amelioration of human conditions, are due, above all these causes, to the general exemption of the civilized world from pestilence, to the better health that prevails, to the larger average term of human life. During the last few decades, the period of life in this country and in Europe has been double what it was when Columbus discovered America. War alone did not keep Europe poor for so many centuries. Modern campaigns are more costly than protracted contests in former times. The countries of the Old World might have prospered without precious metals and the advantages afforded by machinery. It was disease that spread the pall of poverty over Europe. Every family was wasted and enfeebled by sickness, besides having to meet several times in each century the unsparing conscription of pestilence. The short average period of human life permitted less time individually to men to amass wealth. The diminished power of production, the waste by sickness and the recurring plagues which were worse than prohibitory tariffs in interrupting commercial intercourse, all combined to check effort and keep everybody destitute. We have not been without our lessons in the United States. Cholera, yellow fever and other deadly epidemics are periodical in their visitations. They will overleap any quarantine, where there are insalubrious conditions for their inception. The cities of the Southwest, New Orleans, Galveston, Shreveport, Memphis and other places that may be named, seem always to be incubating pestilence. We all remember the disorder contracted by many who visited Philadelphia during the Centennial season. New England has attained the bad eminence of being the hot-bed of pulmonary consumption. The influence of this fact upon her commercial prosperity is manifest. A Governor of Connecticut once invoked

the attention of the legislature to the matter. A high death-rate is significant of deficient physical energy, moral enervation, limited productive power, and restriction of industry. In the South, the city of New Orleans is an incubus on the prosperity of all that region, from the recurring epidemics of yellow fever, set in action by the seething accumulations of filth and the barbarous method of piling up its dead. It is impossible for one individual or a community to be sick and prosperous at the same time. When an epidemic rages all business is paralyzed. The pecuniary losses by pestilence transcend those of devastation by fire. Savannah had a single epidemic of yellow fever lasting but a few months, and was brought to the verge of bankruptcy, from which it will take many years to recover. A visitation upon New Haven produced a depressing result from which the city has never rallied. Philadelphia was so disabled in resources by the yellow fever of 1795, as never to regain her commercial and metropolitan rank. A few years ago she lost more than $20,000,000 from a visitation of smallpox which might have been prevented by proper drainage and sanitary precaution. Memphis is a standing menace to the prosperity of all the West. An epidemic like that of last year if it had occurred in the city of New York, would have entailed incalculable disaster upon her business enterprise. There is a prodigious competition at the present time between civilized nations. The best endeavors of statesmanship are put forth to extend and maintain commerce and productive industry. Every country having special advantage is sure to prosper; but any temporary misfortune is liable to throw it behind in the race. There is accordingly an acute sensitiveness in regard to every possible drawback. The individuals or public journals reporting the existence of epidemic disease in New York, like cholera or yellow fever, often incurs the most violent censure. The person in Memphis who speaks the exact truth in regard to the sanitary condition is certain to be proscribed. There have been two terrific outbreaks of yellow fever, and the city is a seething bed of filth, from which the most mortal of diseases are likely to be produced. But he who tells of it does so at his peril. Yet a few such visitations in our principal cities would overturn the entire prosperity of the country. Nowhere does there exist the assurance of exemption. Europe, not long ago, stood aghast at the possible incursion of the plague of Astrakhan. The slightest alarm in any place is sufficient to set the whole population in uproar, and to induce a resort to quarantines, sanitary cordons and other precautions. How easily a city or country can be efficiently protected, was fully illustrated by General B. F. Butler at New Orleans. If his administration had been carried over all the lower region of the Mississippi Valley, yellow fever, cholera and other filth-diseases would have been effectually banished. There is no prevention possible of any pestilential visitation except by throttling the cause. Boards of Health and other administrative bodies constituted or controlled by physicians, are hardly the proper agency to do this efficiently. The exigencies of public sanitation are too vital to be given a subordinate place to professional proscription, the exactions of trade-union Code of Ethics. The best sanitary officers are chemists and engineers - men of practical common sense. The nucleus of epidemic must be destroyed where it exists, by the cleansing of the soil, human abodes and everything about them unwholesome or impure. In short, political economy regards health as anterior and essential to the prosperity of a people. Popular education, social advancement, national greatness, are attainable only upon this condition. Whatever achievement or excellence may exist or be possible beyond, if not primarily and solely due to it, is nevertheless largely dependant. Physical

efficiency involves more or less of moral power, the will to originate and the energy to accomplish, which render alike the man and commonwealth the realized ideal. (Transactions of the National Eclectic Medical Association, vol. 8, 188081, pp. 173-87) --------------------

GOETHE by A. N. W. (Alexander Wilder) Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is certainly one of the greatest writers that Germany has produced, and taking into consideration the universality of his teaching and the clearness of his aims, we cannot but accept him as one of the Elder Brethren of Humanity. Carlyle says, "I consider that for the last hundred years by far the notablest of all literary men is Goethe. To that man is given what we may call a life in the divine idea of the world, vision of the inward divine mystery; and strangely, out of his books, the world rises imaged once more as godlike, the workmanship and temple of a God." Carlyle goes on to say that his chosen specimen of the "Hero as a literary man," would have been Goethe, as he considered him to be "heroic in what he said and did, and still more in what he did not say and do." "A great heroic ancient man, speaking and keeping silence as an ancient hero, in the guise of a most modern, high-bred, high-cultivated man of letters," but, he says, that in the present state of the knowledge of Goethe in England it was useless to attempt to speak of him. That we are not quite so ignorant of this master mind now, I venture to hope, still we know too little of his great works, which well repay study. Carlyle himself learned German in order to read the works of Goethe in the original, and to translate "Wilhelm Meister." He was much influenced by these books. Goethe was born at Frankfort-on-Maine, in August, 1749, and was educated at Leipsic University. He was an eager student of science, an artist of some ability, an observant traveler, a striking novelist, and above all a great thinker and poet. While quite a young man his fame reached the Duke of Weimar, who invited him to his court, and made him a privy councilor; he retained an honorable place at this court to the end of his life. Every touch of real art makes for spirituality; the refining of matter, the spiritualizing of life, is the work of the poet and artist, whose sensitive brain can receive knowledge from the past and future, and is indeed both prophet and seer; he exercises the godlike power of creation. Someone says "Art is the need to create." This divine spark that "Prometheus filched for us from heaven," this fire that we all have in our hearts, is the source of our union with other souls, and because of this union we find that great poets and writers often express the thought that we have had without the power of putting it into words. The individual mind becomes, for the moment, the vent for the mind of humanity. So Goethe expresses the feeling of his age, a revolt against the dense naturalism of the time, a reaching upward through the medium of art and science to a higher plane of thought. One of the great charms of Goethe's writings is that his words seem to suggest a deeper meaning than they express, and so lead one to think for himself; they are also full

of a sense of high hope and courage. To him the world was but a manifestation of divine energy; he thought of it as "the living garment of the Deity." During his long life Goethe displayed the greatest intellectual activity in almost every branch of learning; he was in the foremost rank as a man of science, his discoveries, which were chiefly the result of his high powers of perception and imagination, were on lines that led directly to the theory of evolution. He penetrated the depths of other great minds, and brought himself into contact with the secrets of nature. He endeavored to obtain complete control over his senses, and the efforts he made in this direction left their mark on his work, as well as on his life. We find that as Goethe grew older, he inclined more and more to symbolical representation, and this tendency at last reached its climax in the second part of "Faust." Goethe, in the year 1786, entered a phase which he himself designates as his "new intellectual birth." In that year he went to Italy to study art, and what he learned there from both art and nature produced in his mind a fine harmony, which before this period he had lacked. The North gave him intellect, and the South imparted the divine gift of artistic form. Wait Whitman says that "The chief trait of any given poet is always the spirit he brings to the observation of humanity"; this spirit in Goethe was truly universal, he looks for the unity everywhere. In the prelude to "Faust" he puts into the mouth of the poet these words: "What! shall the poet squander them away, For thy poor purposes, himself, his mind; Profane the gift which nature when she gave To him intrusted for mankind, their birthright. Whence is his power all human hearts to win Oh, it is not the harmony within, The music that hath for its dwelling place His own rich soul? All things that in unison agreeing Should join to form the happy web of Being, Are tangled in inextricable strife. Who can awake the brief monotony To measured order? Who upon the dead Unthinking chaos breathe the charm of life, Restore the dissonant to harmony, And bid the jarring individual be A chord, that in the general consecration Bears part with all in musical relation? Whose voice is fame, who gives us to inherit Olympus, and the loved Elysian fields. The soul of man sublimed. - Man's soaring spirit Seen in the poet gloriously revealed." Speaking of the divinity of man, "Faust" says: "Image of God, I thought that I had been Sublimed from earth, no more a child of clay, That shining gloriously with Heaven's own day

I had beheld Truth's countenance serene Raised up immeasurably - every nerve Of Nature's life seemed animate with mine. Her very veins with blood from my veins filled, Her spirit moving as my spirit willed; Then did I in creations of my own (Oh, is not man in everything divine?) Build worlds - or bidding them no longer be, Exert, enjoy a sense of deity." Lewis, in his Life of Goethe, says of him, "He was crystallizing, slowly gaining complete command over himself." "I will be lord over myself," he says. "No one who cannot master himself is worthy to rule, and only he who does can rule." The study of the secrets of nature had the greatest charm for him; it was not a spirit of contradiction that had drawn him, he says, from contemplating the human heart to that of nature, for they are intimately connected, and the "inquiring mind is unwilling to be excluded from anything attainable." "Goethe's heart, which few knew, was as great as his intellect, which all knew." "Goethe's poems," wrote Beethoven, "exercise a great sway on me, not only by their meaning but by their rhythm also. It is a language that urges me on to composition." Curiously enough, Lewis speaks of Goethe's "Theosophy," describing it as "a poetical Pantheism." In it the whole universe was conceived as divine; not as a lifeless mass, but as the living manifestation of divine energy, ever flowing forth into activity. His worship was nature worship, his moral system an idealization of humanity, the human being was the highest manifestation of the divine on earth, and the highest manifestation of humanity was therefore the ideal to which morality tended. "We must first learn renunciation," he says, "learn to give up claims for the sake of others." Goethe devoted much of his time to the study of the works of Paracelsus, also those of Van Helmont, Basil Valentine, Bruno, and other occultists and alchemists, and through their directions he sought to penetrate into the secret places of nature, which are safely guarded from mere curiosity, and are only yielded when there has been an earnest quest, guided by the light from within, and the selflessness that gives proof that these mysteries would be used for the good of all, and not for selfish purposes; otherwise these secrets would bring down destruction on the heads of their discoverers. Goethe does not seem to have advanced far in this direction, though there are signs that he had certain occult knowledge both in "Faust," and "Wilhelm Meister." That Goethe's novel, "Wilhelm Meister" has a deep moral import there is no doubt. Emerson, speaking of it, says, "I suppose no book of this century can compare with it, its delicious sweetness, so new, so provoking to the mind, gratifying it with so many and so solid thoughts, just insights into life, and manners, and character, so many good hints for the conduct of life, so many unexpected glimpses into a higher sphere." That Emerson appreciated Goethe very highly is shown in his essay on him, where he says, "The old eternal genius who built the world has confided himself more to this man than to any other." Still, he did not view him with the enthusiasm and rapture of Carlyle, and yet perhaps there was more similarity between Emerson and Goethe than between Goethe and Carlyle, their Pantheism was of the same quality, their knowledge of the union of all was the underlying quality of their work, and their insight into the processes of nature arose from this

knowledge. Goethe has said, "To discuss God apart from nature is both difficult and perilous; it is as if we separated the soul from the body; we know the soul through the medium of the body, and God only through nature." As a proof of this union, Goethe quotes this passage from Bruno. ''The One, The Infinite, The Being, and that which is in all things, is everywhere the same." Emerson, writing of Plato, calls him "this eldest Goethe." In "Wilhelm Meister" Goethe shows his manifold nature, the subjects treated are so various and numerous, including Husbandry, Geology, Art, Philosophy, Religion, and many others. This book seems to be a representation of the evolution of man, both as a race, and an individual; it is often allegorical, but above all it teems with humanity. Man, as a child, learning light and truths of life, from puppet shows and childish mummeries; as a youth, from love and friendship, the drama, poetry and pictures; as a man, through philosophy, religion, through occult initiations and terrible renunciations. All these ways of life Goethe had experienced himself; what he says carries deep conviction of truth with it. There is an intense purpose throughout this work, a leading up from the individual to the community, from isolation to unity. "Wilhelm Meister," as a youth who has a touch of the poet in him, and a great interest in the drama, finds his surroundings very prosaic; believing that a beautiful girl he is devoted to is unfaithful to him, he leaves home and joins a company of traveling actors. In their society he meets many adventures and vicissitudes, and at length coming under the observation of a group of men, the nucleus of a great secret society, he is taken under their supervision. They test him, and believing him to be worthy, eventually initiate him into their order. He is then bound to obey orders received, to work for the cause of Humanity, and is styled "A Renunciant." This ends the first part. The second contains his travels, and commences with these lines: "To travel now the apprentice does essay, And every step is girt with doubt and danger, In truth he uses not to sing or pray, But is his path perplexed, this toilsome ranger Does turn an earnest eye when mists above him, To his own heart, and to the hearts that love him." In one of his soliloquies "Wilhelm Meister," says, "Not in thy condition, but in thyself, lies the mean impediment over which thou can'st not gain the mastery. What mortal if without inward calling he take up a trade, an art, any mode of life, will not feel his situation miserable? Thou feelest not the co-operating, co-inspiring whole, which the mind alone can invent, comprehend and complete. Thou feelest not that in man there lies a spark of purer fire, which when it is not fed, when it is not fanned, gets covered by ashes of indifference and daily wants; yet not till late, perhaps never, can be altogether quenched." And again, "Did the forms of active men never rise up living in thy soul, were thy breast warmed by a sympathetic fire, did the vocation which proceeds from within diffuse itself over all thy frame, were the tones of thy voice, the words of thy mouth delightful to hear, did'st thou feel thy own being sufficient for thyself, then would'st thou doubtless seek place and opportunity likewise to feel it in others."

Speaking of the power of the actor in swaying the feelings of the people, he says, "What actor, what author, nay, what man of any class, would not regard himself as on the summit of his wishes, could he by a noble saying, or worthy action, produce so universal an impression? What a precious emotion would it give if one could disseminate generous, exalted, manly feelings with electric force and speed, if one could communicate to thronging multitudes a fellow feeling in all that belongs to man, by the portraying of happiness and misery, of wisdom and folly; could kindle and thrill their utmost souls, and set their stagnant nature into movement, free, vehement and pure." And speaking of the power of the poet to transmute the common, everyday life into something rare and precious, he says, "From his native soil springs up the lovely flower of wisdom, and if others are pained with fantastic delusions from their every sense, he passes the dream of life like one awake, and the strangest of incidents is to him but a part both of the past and the future. And thus the poet is at once a teacher, a prophet, and a friend of gods and men." He goes on to say, "The recital of a noble action moves us, the sight of everything harmonious moves us, we feel then as if we were not altogether in a foreign land. We fancy we are nearer home, towards which our best and inmost wishes impatiently strive." "Faust" is perhaps the work by which Goethe is best known in this country, thanks to Irving, and Gounod, who have made us familiar with this story. Faust was commenced by Goethe quite early in his literary career, but the second part was not finished until his last year, so it had accompanied him during his entire active life, and marked the different stages of his mental evolution. He told a friend that this life work being finished he would regard the rest of his existence as "a pure gift," but he worked more or less to the end of his life. If he was a great thinker, he was also a great worker. He says somewhere "To think and to act, to act and to think, this is the sum of all the wisdom that has from the first been acknowledged and practiced." Those who can read the works of Goethe in the original have a great advantage, as doubtless much of the actual intention of the author is lost in translation. In this short paper there is no time to examine "Faust," which is a mine of philosophy, and symbolic ideas. No doubt Goethe intended to represent the great battle that ever wages between the mighty forces of good and evil, the white and black magic; the dark forces making for selfish pleasure, as good to the individual leads only to perpetual misery; the renunciation of self is necessary to bring the will into harmony with the ideal law of love; to give up the individual happiness for the good of all, to act in the spirit of brotherhood, this is the only way to satisfy the deep needs of life. So "Faust" had to learn from the struggles and turmoils of his tragical existence. I had hoped to have spoken of the beautiful scheme of education which is elaborated in "Wilhelm Meister," and to have mentioned the "Iphigenia," which, though it bears certain resemblance to the tragedies of Aeschylus and Euripides on this theme, yet is not by any means an imitation; but it would be impossible to do justice to these in a short paper, or even to mention his other numerous works. In Goethe's later years his sympathy seemed to become more active, age had no power to chill his love of humanity, and every discovery in science, every new departure in Art or Literature, found him eager as a child for knowledge and instruction. He died in 1832, when in his eighty-third year. His wonderful intellectual powers were almost unimpaired to the last. "Light, more Light," was the departing cry of this great soul, who,

notwithstanding his knowledge and wisdom, knew that he was as a child playing on the seashore, while the immense ocean of Truth lay unexplored before him. In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says, "The spiritually wise is verily myself, because with heart at peace he is upon the road that leadeth to the highest path, which is even myself. After many births the spiritually wise findeth me; such an one of great soul is difficult to meet." So this master mind who knew his smallness also recognized his divine birthright, and we may, I think, believe that when such an ego revisits the material plane of this planet it will be as the dawning of a bright particular star. (Universal Brotherhood, August, 1899) ---------------------

HENRY CLAY by Alexander Wilder, M .D. THE illustration of "Henry Clay addressing Congress" exhibits, with almost the exactness of portraits, the likeness of the prominent members of the American Senate at that time. It is to be regretted that a key is not given, as several of them, and these not the men of less importance, are not at this late period easily recognized. Yet as we look upon their faces here delineated, we feel as it we had known them all. Naturally our attention is first directed to the figure of the one addressing the Senate. The United States will have to pass through another Civil War as destructive of former memories as this one has been, before Henry Clay can be forgotten. Making his mark upon the history, legislation and diplomacy of the country, that mark cannot be removed except the heart of the Nation is torn out with it. The presiding officer we recognize as Millard Fillmore, once a favorite son of New York, and Vice-President in 1849 and 1850; then succeeding to the presidency at the death of General Taylor. Growing up from poverty and his few opportunities, he became an accomplished lawyer, a diligent legislator, and a statesman of recognized ability. Comely of person, graceful in manner, and generous in his impulses, he was at the time one of the most popular men of Western New York, and continued to be till he signed the measure that operated more than any other to estrange the citizens of the Republic from one another - the Fugitive Slave Act of 1851. We also observe near the speaker General Lewis Cass, then the foremost man of the Democratic Party, whose nomination for President in 1852 Mr. Clay desired and hoped for as most likely to avert the crisis which he foresaw. He then lay dying, but to the last the welfare of his Country was at his heart. But General Cass was passed over, and the current moved with renewed force to the final event. For years as Senator and Cabinet Minister he put forth his energy to arrest its progress, but was compelled to give way overpowered. On beyond is John C. Calhoun, with head bent forward, listening intently. His, likewise, was a career of remarkable significance in the Nation. He had entered Congress almost at the same time with Mr. Clay, and both in concert with Langdon Cheves and

William Lowndes, who seemed to have been elected for that purpose, put forth their utmost efforts with success, to procure a declaration of war with Great Britain. The measure was regarded essential to the continuance of the Republican Party in power, and Mr. Madison reluctantly acceded to it, regretting his compliance soon afterward. The next turn of the wheel made Mr. Calhoun a Cabinet Minister, and an aspirant for the presidency, for which he had the support of Daniel Webster. Falling short of that ambition, he became the champion of State Rights and nullification, bringing his native commonwealth to the verge of civil war, and himself into personal peril. Thenceforth he set about educating his people for mortal conflict. The attempt to add new territory to this country for the extending of the power of the Southern as against the Northern States, had brought nearer the crisis which Mr. Clay was striving to avert. It seems almost anachronism to place Mr. Calhoun in this picture, for he died in 1850. Daniel Webster, however, is the figure soonest recognized. The artist has placed him in a row a little way behind the orator, sitting in a thoughtful mood, but leaving us at a loss to surmise whether he is attending to the subject under discussion, or meditating upon some topic which he may esteem to be of profounder importance. He was translated to the Cabinet a second time by President Fillmore, but found himself without supporters except personal friends and admirers, and estranged from his political associates. He quickly followed Mr. Clay to the grave in 1852. The other faces in the picture seem familiar and are carefully depicted. We do not find, however, the "new men" who had already come as precursors of the next epoch in American history. John P. Hale and William H. Seward are left out, and we fail of finding Daniel S. Dickinson, John Davis or Stephen A. Douglas. Those whom we do see there were undoubtedly regarded as more notable, belonging as they did to an era that seems to have passed almost completely into oblivion. For it is true however discreditable as it may seem, that the events of that time and the men of that time are almost as little cognized by Americans of the present generation as though they had been of the period of Magna Charta and the Conference of Barons at Runnymede. The war with Mexico resulting from the annexation of Texas in 1845, had effected the addition of New Mexico and California to the jurisdiction of the United States. Legislation was required to provide for the exigency. An issue had been introduced by the "Wilmot Proviso," declaring that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except for crime, should exist in the new territory. This issue had decided the election of 1848 giving the Whigs the National Administration. The organizing of Oregon with this inhibition had created an alarm. There were fifteen states with slavery and fifteen without, so that each region had an equal number of Senators. This arrangement was now imperilled. The contest was very sharp. Mr. Clay apprehending danger to the Union, procured the appointment of a joint Congressional Committee to devise measures of pacification. This Committee reported what was known as the "Omnibus Bill," providing for the admission of California as a State, the organization of territorial governments for Utah and New Mexico, and more effective measures for the rendition of runaway slaves. It is apparently in support of this measure that Mr. Clay is speaking. The prominent senators, the supporters of this legislation, are listening. It may be well to add that it did not pass in this form, but that the several propositions thus massed together, were afterward enacted in separate bills.

[[portrait]] Mr. Clay was always a conspicuous character in American History. His marked personality, his impressive manner, his profound sincerity, his unquestioned patriotism, his unblemished public career, his loyal friendship, his ardent sympathy for the helpless and injured, all combined to make him the idol of his party. He was like Agamemnon, a "king of men." Even when defeated, he never lost prestige, but gained in the affection of those who knew him. Ambitious, he certainly was, for he aspired to the chief office in the Republic, but he stubbornly refused to employ unworthy means to secure the prize. When the place was within his grasp, and his supporters were buoyant with assurance of success, he put it out of his reach by exuberant frankness. Yet the disappointment never weakened his love of country, and his last efforts were put forth to secure harmony in our public councils and to preserve the Nation undivided. He was the architect of his own fortunes. His early opportunities were limited, and he had never been able to obtain a liberal education. His father was a Baptist preacher, at that time of no account in Virginia, and there was no relationship with "first families." Henry Clay was strictly of the people and a son of the people; his blood was intensely red, without any tinge of patrician blue. Early left an orphan he ate the bread of poverty, and at a tender age was taught to work for a livelihood, to plough, to dig and labor in the harvest field. He was generally known in the region as "the Mill Boy of the Slashes." Fortunately for him when he was fourteen years of age, his mother married a second husband, a man quick to perceive the ability of the youth and to find him opportunity. He was placed for a year in a retail store in Richmond, and afterward in the office of the clerk of the High Court of Chancery. A biographer describes him at this period as raw-boned, lank and awkward, with a countenance by no means handsome, and dressed in garments homemade and ill-fitting, with linen starched to such a stiffness as to make him look peculiarly strange and uncomfortable. As he took his place at the desk to copy papers, his new companions tittered at his appearance, and his blushing confusion. They soon learned to like him, however, and he was found to be a faithful and industrious worker. He read incessantly during his hours of leisure but unfortunately acquired a habit of cursory perusing, a "skimming over" which he never conquered, and which seriously interfered with thoroughness. This became afterward to him a source of profound regret. His diligence at work attracted the attention of the Chancellor, George Wythe, who selected him for amanuensis to write out and record the decisions of the Court. This was the turning point of his career. Wythe was a signer of the Declaration of Independence and member of the Convention that framed the Federal Constitution. He believed in what he promulgated, emancipating his slaves and making provision for their subsisting. Thomas Jefferson and John Marshall had been his students. The four years thus spent there decided Clay to become a lawyer, and he entered the office of Robert Brooke the Attorney General as a regular student. A year later he received the license to practice. At the age of twenty he set out for Kentucky to seek his fortune, making his residence at Lexington then styled "the literary and intellectual centre of the West." He became, like all Southern men of note, a politician, and quickly gained distinction as a speaker. In 1797 a Convention was held to revise the Constitution of the State, and he labored assiduously, but without success to procure the adoption of a system of

emancipation. He saved his popularity, however, by vigorously declaring against the Alien and Sedition Laws of Congress. So much easier is it to resent and deplore the wrongs that others commit than to repent of those we commit ourselves. Mr. Clay was from this time a champion of the helpless and the wronged. It required personal as well as moral courage. There were men in Kentucky who regarded themselves as leaders in Society and above being held to account for unworthy and lawless acts. Colonel Joseph Dayiess, then District Attorney of the United States and a Federalist, perpetrated a brutal assault upon a private citizen. Everybody feared him but Mr. Clay. He took the matter boldly up. Dayiess warned him to desist, but was unable to frighten him even by a challenge to a duel. With like sentiment toward a man that he conceived to be wronged, he became a defender of Aaron Burr, but on learning of deception he refused further friendly relations. After a period of service in the Legislature, Mr. Clay was chosen to fill an unexpired term in the Senate at Washington and took his seat in December, 1806, when under thirty years of age. He seems to have paid little heed to the unwritten law of reticence, but took active part in speaking and legislating. He advocated the projects of a bridge across the Potomac, and also roads and canals to facilitate communication between the Atlantic Seaboard and the region west of the Allegheny Mountains. A monument near Wheeling commemorates his support of the Cumberland Road. Political opinions then current have a curious flavor now. Many questioned the constitutionality of such legislation. The establishment of a Navy was opposed. The Barbary States received tribute year by year for abstaining from piracy on American Commerce. Great Britain, claiming to be mistress of the seas, took some six thousand seamen from merchant vessels to serve in her Navy, and confiscated goods that were shipped to European markets. France, likewise, issued decrees of forfeiture; and all the defense attempted was an embargo forbidding American vessels to leave port. Spain pretended that her possessions in West Florida extended to the Mississippi River, and the Federalists in Congress denounced the action of President Madison to hold that region as being a spoliation of a helpless and unoffending power. Mr. Clay had just come again to the Senate. Although the youngest member he was foremost in sustaining vigorous action. "I have no commiseration for princes," said he; "my sympathies are reserved for the great mass of mankind, and I own that the people of Spain have them most sincerely." Then he turned upon the great sensitiveness exhibited toward Great Britain. "This phantom has too much influence on the councils of the Nation," he declared. I most sincerely desire peace and amity with England; I even prefer an adjustment of differences with her before one with any other Nation. But if she persists in a denial of justice to us, or if she avails herself of the occupation in West Florida to commence war upon us, I trust and hope that all hearts will unite in a bold and vigorous vindication of our rights." Mr. Clay next appears as Speaker of the House of Representatives in 1811. The House was more to his liking than the Senate; it was at that time a debating body not dominated as it is now by Committees appointed by the Presiding Officer. He was vehement in demanding preparations for war with England, and talked of terms of peace to be dictated at Halifax. The President was timid, and the North and East opposed; but a declaration was made, and Mr. Madison proposed to make Mr. Clay Commander-in-chief. This he declined. There was a likelihood of cabals in Congress like those which assailed

General Washington in the Revolution. The Navy saved the credit of the Nation, which the Army failed to sustain, and with that it averted a peril of disunion. Negotiations for peace were held at Ghent. Mr. Clay, as one of the Commissioners, yielded a reluctant consent to the treaty. He would not visit England till he heard of the Battle of New Orleans, but he went to Paris. In an interview with Madame de Stael, she spoke of the exasperation in England and the serious intentions of sending the Duke of Wellington to America. "I wish they had," said Clay. "Why?" she asked. "Because," said he, "If he had beaten us we should only have been in the condition of Europe, without disgrace. But if we had been so fortunate as to defeat him, we should have greatly added to the renown of our arms." This conversation was repeated to the Duke, who at once remarked that he would have regarded a victory over the Americans as a greater honor than any which he had ever achieved. He also praised the American Peace Commissioners as having shown more ability than those of England. Henceforth, Mr. Clay remained in his own country. Mr. Madison tendered him the mission to Russia but he declined. He then offered him the portfolio of the War Department. But Mr. Clay chose rather to return to the House of Representatives and was again elected Speaker. He was now himself a leader; the men who had been at the head of the Republican Party from the time of Washington, were passing from supremacy. The war had developed new necessities and new views of political subjects, and new men were taking hold of public service. What had been denounced in 1810 became the policy of 1816; the Federal party passed away, for its leaders had offended the nation, and the new Republicans had adopted their principal measures. We now find Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun still hand in hand, with Daniel Webster the Union-lover and John Randolph the Union-hater in opposition, and the President still holding the old traditions. The conditions of affairs in South America was the occasion of a bill for more strict enforcing of neutrality. Mr. Clay dissented from the measure. The ignorance and superstition imputed to the people of the Spanish provinces, he insisted, was due to the tyranny and oppression, hierarchic and political, under which they groaned. Their independence was the first step toward improving their condition. "Let them have free government if they are capable of enjoying it," said he; "but let them, at all events, have independence. I may be accused of an imprudent utterance of my feelings on this occasion. I care not. When the independence, the happiness, the liberty of a whole people is at stake, and that people our neighbors, occupy a portion of the same continent, imitating our example and participating of the same sympathies with ourselves, I will boldly avow my feelings and my wishes in their behalf, even at the hazard of such an imputation." He had exulted at the victory of New Orleans by a Western General in a Western State. But when General Jackson in the Seminole War, enlisted volunteers again without civil authority, invaded Florida, decoyed Indian Chiefs into his camp by a flag of truce and put them to death, besides executing two British subjects, Mr. Clay denounced his acts as a disregard of every principle of honor, humanity and justice. He was, however, again in advance of popular sentiment. The proposed admission of Missouri to the Union as a Slave State became an issue for several years. It was a question whether there should continue as before an equal number of Free and Slave States, so as to assure the latter a safeguard in the Senate. It

was interest on one side and sentiment on the other. The excitement was so intense as to threaten the Union itself. Dissolution was actually considered. The matter was finally determined by a vote to admit Missouri but to exclude slavery from all the region west of it and north of its southern boundary line. In this controversy Mr. Clay acted with the Southern Congressmen, and by his sagacity as Speaker, the measure was made sure: the conflict, however, to be again renewed a third of a century later, transforming the politics of a Nation. None of Mr. Clay's speeches on this question were published. He had been constrained by the voice of his State and fears for the safety of the Union, but he was not willing to appear before his countrymen and posterity in the lurid light of sustaining slavery. The revolt in Greece enlisted the sympathy of all America. Meetings were held to declare the prevailing sentiment. Albert Gallatin even proposed to aid with a naval force. Mr. Webster offered a resolution in Congress authorizing a Commissioner to be sent to that country. Mr. Clay supported the motion in his Demosthenean style. After portraying the situation, he added the challenge: "Go home if you can; go home if you dare, to your constituents, and tell them that you voted this proposition down; meet if you can, the appalling countenances of those who sent you here, and tell them that you shrank from the declaration of your own sentiments; that you can not tell how, but that some unknown dread, some indescribable apprehension, some indefinable danger, drove you away from your purpose; that the spectres of cimiters, and crowns, and crescents, gleamed before you and alarmed you; and that you suppressed all the noble feelings prompted by religion, by liberty, by national independence, and by humanity." Mr. Clay had been already placed in the field as a candidate for President, and this temerity astonished his supporters. He had enemies, likewise, to take advantage of his excitable temper, to irritate him to personal altercation. John Randolph was conspicuous. He taunted Mr. Clay for his defective education. "I know my deficiencies," Mr. Clay replied. "I was born to no patrimonial estate; from my father I inherited only infancy, ignorance and indigence. I feel my defects; but so far as my situation in early life is concerned, I may without presumption say they are more my misfortune than my fault." There were no political parties in 1824; all were Republicans, and the contest was simply between men. Mr. Clay was approached with propositions such as would now be considered legitimate. He refused to enter into any arrangements or make any promise or pledge. There was no choice effected by the Electors. In the Legislature of Louisiana, advantage was taken of the absence of members to deprive him of the vote of that State. He was thus deprived of the opportunity of an election by the House of Representatives. It so happened, however, that the decision was in his hands, and he gave his vote to John Quincy Adams. The two had differed widely and with temper, but of Mr. Adams' superior fitness there was no possible question. In political matters he never rewarded a friend nor punished an adversary. He administered every trust conscientiously. Mr. Clay became his Secretary of State. It was an administration which the Nation would like to witness again. The honor of the Nation was sustained; the country was prosperous beyond former periods. What may now appear incredible, there were twenty-four states in the Union, yet the public expenditures barely exceeded eleven million dollars a year. The endeavor to effect a friendly alliance with the new Spanish-American Republics was unsuccessful. When Bolivar wrote Mr. Clay a letter acknowledging his good offices,

he replied with a gentle remonstrance against the establishing of an arbitrary dictatorship. He was disappointed in his hopes and expectations. Mr. Adams had judged those men better than he. In diplomacy Mr. Clay aimed at reciprocity in commercial matters. He advised the recognition of Hayti likewise, as a sovereign State. He also became one of the chief supporters of the African Colonization Society. He believed it possible to remove a sufficient number of free negroes to reduce sensibly the number of the colored population, and bring about gradual emancipation. "If," said he, "I could be instrumental in eradicating this deepest stain upon the character of our country, and removing all cause of reproach on account of it by foreign nations; if I could only be instrumental in ridding of this foul blot that revered State that gave me birth, or that not less beloved State which kindly adopted me as her son, I would not exchange the proud satisfaction which I should enjoy for the honor of all the triumphs ever decreed to the most successful conqueror." In 1828 a new administration and a newly organized political party were chosen. Mr. Clay returned to Kentucky. But defeat never lessened his hold upon his friends. In 1831 Daniel Webster, voicing the sentiment of them all, wrote to him: "We need your arm in the fight. It would be an infinite gratification to me to have your aid, or rather your lead.'' Reluctantly he obeyed. He took his seat in the Senate more heartily welcomed by his friends, more bitterly hated by his enemies, than ever before. From this time he was more conservative. He was henceforth the opposer of aggression, the pacificator for the sake of the Union. He was again nominated for President by the Republicans in 1832. Some years later the opposition united to form the Whig Party, but although he was its acknowledged leader, the anti-masonic influence gave the nomination in 1840 to Gen. Wm. H. Harrison. He was, however, again nominated in 1844 and apparently certain of election till a letter was published in which he spoke of the proposed annexation of Texas in ambiguous terms which disaffected anti-slavery voters enough to defeat him. He had retired from the Senate two years before, but came back under the new administration. He foresaw peril to the Republic, and now hoped to be able to stay the tide. But it was only temporary. His personal appearance, as represented in the picture, was unique. He was tall and thin, though muscular; and there was an entire absence of everything like stiffness or haughtiness. His manner was cordial and kind, inviting rather than repelling approach. His eyes were dark gray, small, and when excited they flashed with striking vividness. His forehead was high and broad. His mouth was large, but expressive of genius and energy. His voice was silvery, deep-toned, and exquisitely modulated. When speaking, he threw his soul into the subject, carrying along the souls of the hearers, making them assent or dissent as he did. He spoke as the patriot warrior of a thousand battles would speak; and despite the enmity and rancor which pursued him with fiendish bitterness, the men opposed to him mourned with his friends when he was no more a denizen of earth. (Un. Brotherhood, Feb., 1899) -------------

Miscellanea From Gould's Miscellaneous Notes and Queries

- Alexander Wilder Contents: Red Republicans - Quotations - Transformation of Words - Seventh Son - Cagliostro - Ingangthef - Judicial Astrology - Translation of Lucretius - "Counting-Out" Rhymes - The Term "City" - Chaldean "Saros" - Tarpeian Rock - Oneteen, Twoteen Cosmo De Medici - Graces, Fates, and Furies - Who Betrayed a City? - Greatest American Thinkers - Jannes and Jambres - Symbols of the Four Elements - Jawbone Twice Ypsilanti - Ephesian Letters - One First Cause - "Dough-Faces." - Reduplicated Words William "The Taciturn" - Earth-Eaters - Ancient Etrurians - Darwinism or Darwinianism? Argos-Eyed - Path by which to Deity we Climb - Argonauts - Jew, Hebrew, or Israelite Songs of a Nation - Shamrock - Vatican - Baugh-Naugh-Claugh-Paugh - Pompeii - Gypsies - "A" in Sanscrit Words - "Djafar" - Portraits of Christ - Double Consciousness - Pelasgi, Pelasgos - Rosicrucians - God is a circle - Statue of Ethan Allen - Franklin and His Son Tower in Siloam - Deucalion - Claims of Descendants - Zem Zem - Franklin's Letter to Strahan - Yggdasil - An Ancient Word - Thebes - "By the Eternal" - Twelve Disciples - Willo'-The Wisp - Macrocosm and Microcosm - Abstain From Beans - Barchocab - Crescent Izzard and Zed - United States of Columbia - Loud-Voiced Personages - The Name Pyramid - Hugonotorum Strages - Hyponoia and Parousia - First Name of America - Robert B. Thomas - Biped without Feathers - Cabiri - Mephistophilus - Ulysses; Calypso; Circe Aesculapios - Kosmos - Philitis, or Philitoon - Oannes - Lost Ten Tribes - Logos - Calypso and Circe - Socratic Eclenchus and Sorities - Library First Mentioned in the Bible - Nemesis - Casting Out the 9's - Harpies - Sufic Quotations - Platonopolis - "Prepare a Table for Fortune" - Erchomenos - Ho Areios Pagos - Saint Christopher - Ulysses-Odysseus Divinity Within Me - Thamudites - Lost Sign of the Zodiac - Crispus Attucks - Children of the Sun - First American Novel - Almanac and Calendar - Bavaria and Samaria - Sibyls and Sirens - Creation Legend - Popes Named Alexander - Law of Least Effort - Psychology, Mesmerism, Hypnotism - Monosyllabic Languages - Gypsies - New Caesarea - Book of the Angel - Scholiast and Sciolist - "Conscience Seared with a Hot Iron" - Odyssey Longimanus - Evil - Merodach - Bombast - Canker and Cancer - Columbia and Olombia Genuine Theosophy - Apotheosis and Pantheon - Ecclesiastes - Neo-Platonism - Enochs in the Bible - Kenosis - Rhapsododes - Few Chosen - Justin Martyr - Homoeoteleuton Hermeneutics - Soul the Mistress of Life - Abrasax, or Abraxas - Christ a Secret - Surname and Sirname - Translations - Gen. Ethan Allen Hitchcock - Kabbalistic Names - Dual Arithmetic - Son of a Hundred Years - Chrestos - Evangelists - Temple of Apollo - An Adept Becomes - Conservation of Forces - Pronunciation of Ogygia - "Heap Coals of Fire on His Head" ----------Red Republicans. ([re:] p. 543, g.) The Red Republicans were so designated from the party in France at the first revolution, whose symbol was the red cap, adopted from the Phrygian bonnet and the red cap of the god Mithras. From them Mr. Bronson, who stigmatized every creed which he had abandoned, applied the designation to European republicans generally who desired to do away with the hereditary rank and class distinction. - A. Wilder (MISCELLANEOUS NOTES AND QUERIES With Answers, In All Departments of Literature, S.C. & L.M. Gould, Manchester, N.H., Vol. 2, 1885, p. 581)

Quotations. (p. 543, d.) It is not permissible to change a word in a quotation, except the alteration sometimes indicated. Still, there are many that do it. The quotations made in the New Testament from the Prophets, and by the Fathers from both, are chiefly remarkable for these very changes. - A. Wilder (ibid, p. 583) Transformation of Words. (p. 560, c.) The English modes of rendering foreign words have very generally been an inheritance from the Norman conquerors, who in more ways than one perverted out Saxon orthography. Finding that the Saxon and not the Norman-French would be the English language, they changed the spelling to accommodate their ways of sounding letters. So, accordingly, German-Italian, and other proper names underwent analogous transformations. Florence is from the Latin Florentina, thus "Frenchified." Leghorn seems to be an example of the old custom of using g as interchangeable with v, u, w, b, f, and h. "Djafar" should remember Voltaire's definition of etymology, as a science in which vowels signified nothing, and consonants very little. Vienna is the Latin orthography of Wien, and Cologne the Norman mode of rendering Colonia. Such transformations have been common in all ages. The Sanskrit jna becomes gnoeo, nosio, kuno, ken, can; the old Aryan daeva, comes to us as devil and deity; the Latin filius appears in Spanish as hijo. Think of lady as bandhu, the binder and encloser. More absurd, however, is the Greek Latin, and modern fashion of changing proper names; as Zeus and Amon into Jupiter, Here in Juno, Artemis into Diana, Demeter into Ceres, Poseidon into Neptune, Asar and Asi into Osiris and Isis, also into Bacchus and Ceres. The new names are caricatures of the old gods. What judgement shall we pass on the immodest fashion of using vulgar French nicknames, like Susie, Maggie, Nellie, etc., in place of proper names? - A. Wilder (ibid, p. 599) The Seventh Son. (p. 543, f.) The Akkadians and their successors attach divine powers to the number seven, because the planets were seven in number. Thus Saturn as the seventh planet had superior sanctity, and they also all hallowed the seventh day of the week. The Healing Art was always more or less blended with astrology, and was, as its followers still seek to make it, a kind of priestcraft and caste distinction. Hence the seventh son was regarded a divine genius for healing, and other sacred functions. - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 606) Cagliostro. (p. 390, k.) Cagliostro is generally regarded as a charlatan and imposter. Many, however, are of a different judgment and it may yet be ascertained that the truth lies in his case as in others, between the extremes. His fate would seem to ally him closely to Giordano Bruno. He seems to have had the power to exhibit the simulacra of the dead and to procure the knowledge of facts existing in other person's memories. Along with this, he seems to have done many tricks of legerdemain that would hardly belong to an occult science. He is judged nowadays according to the condition of the mind of the individual judging. The name Cagliostro seems to be from the Greek kalos and oster, meaning the beautiful star, the sun. His other designation Balsamo is evidently the same as Baal-samer, lord of the sky. It is said that he suggested to Lord Bulwer Lytton the idea of Ganoni - which name has the same meaning. - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 668)

Ingangthef. (p. 624, I.) Infangthef is an old English-Saxon law term, from the Saxon in-fangen-thef, and means the right of jurisdiction possessed and exercised by noblemen to judge and punish thieves taken on their estate. The word is obsolete, however. - A. Wilder What Does the "88" Refer to? Sir Thomas Browne referred to by the number 88 to the year 1588, in which the Spanish Armada menaced England, but were driven off by adverse winds and finally destroyed by tempests. This even assured the naval supremacy of England and began the decadence of Spain. - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 668) Judicial Astrology. (p. 624, h.) Derives its name from the Latin judex, or judge. But anciently this term had a wider meaning. The rulers of Carthage and Palestine were called suffetes or judges. These officials belonged to the caste of priests, who were the cohens, manter's or diviners of those days. As a technic it was long ages older than Judea, although practiced there as much as elsewhere. It is hardly prudent for one to speak candidly of astrology, now that every mention of it invites supercilious contempt and villainous ribaldry. It seems based upon the idea that life and destiny are universal, and that every globe, planet and star, is their abode and avator. From Zarcastle to Kepler, a God, angel, or soul was believed to be in every star. Since modern science has sought to turn God, angels and souls out of the universe, it has still been recognized that polarity and magnetism exist in every heavenly body, and influence the motion, the telluric and atmospheric condition of every stellar world. It can be but a step farther to perceive that such influence will also affect the health, the mental and moral condition, and so the actions and destinies of men. Causation is eternal and from the region beyond time and sense. Hence, after all consideration has been given, which is due to the charlatanic practices and utterances of those who profess the art of astrology, there is abundant room left for a teachable confidence in the truth which may underlay the whole matter. See Genesis, I, 14 - "let them be for signs" - Hebrew A T U T, - signs, symbols and attests. - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 671) Translation of Lucretius. (p. 608, k.) I suppose this translation of Lucretius as good as any: De nihilo nihil, in nihilnm nil posse reverti; - from nothing comes nothing, into nothing can nothing return. - A. W. Pan-Handle. Pan-Handle is a designation of that district of country intersected by the railroad thence called Pan-Handle route. I never gave the matter attention, but rested content with the surmise that a little strip of Virginian territory between the Ohio river and Pennsylvanian line was so named in burlesque of the shape on the map. - A. W. (ibid., p. 672) "Counting-Out" Rhymes. (Vol. 2, pp. 484, 563.) I observe the "counting-out rhymes," and think the theories correct of Mr. C.G. Leland, imputing them to the gypsies. In my callow days at the district school in Verona, N.Y., we had the nearest like No. XX. (See Vol. 2, p. 564) A variation was occasionally used, which we were told was Dutch, as follows: Onery, ory, ickory, ze, Hillibone, crack-a-bone, ten-or-o, lo,

Spin, spun - must be done, Triddlecorn, traddlecorn, twenty-one. The gipsy language is apparently a dialect of Hindustani. I have heard it represented as Sanskrit, but this was erroneous. The late Dr. James O. Noyes was of this opinion, however; but we may as well plead that the gypsies were Egyptians, from their name; and quote Bruce who was so certain that he found a Sanskrit-speaking race in Abyssinia. The Bhazigurs, or Nuts of India, appear to have been the stock from which the gypsies sprung. Their religious habits are peculiar. They often profess to the current faith where they happen to be, but keep up the customs of their own. They marry after a form of capture; and the bridegroom "seals" a woman by putting red powder on her forehead. This powder always has an erotic signification in Hindustan. Many of their words are known in our language. Their designation of Kunjura has become "conjurer;" jugg is to perform occult rites, which gives us "juggler;" dad is "daddy," or father; tattoo, or hect, is our word for "branding;" boot, or much, is with us the designation of "money paid additionally," in exchange of goods; Cauliban, or black, furnishes Shakespeare with a name for his human monster in the Tempest, "Caliban;" dicker, to see, gives us "dickens," what a sight! Gercoa, lively, is our "chirk." The thieves' vocabulary contains numerous gipsy, as well as some Hebrew, words; which hint significantly the nationality of the instructors of scientific roguery. - A. Wilder, M.D., Newark, N.J. (The Bizarre NOTES AND QUERIES in History, Folk-Lore, Mathematics, Mysticism, Art, Science, Etc., S.C. and L.M Gould, Manchester, N.H., Vol. 3, 1886, pp. 48) (Question:) The Term "City." (Vol. 2, p. 624) What was the ancient and original name of the city of Rome, and why was the words - Nameless City - applied to it? - O.P. The term "city" anciently differed in meaning from its present and popular sense. It denoted a commune or state, organized socially, politically and religiously as one people, distinct and apart from all others. The head-man was king, pontiff, and judge, all in one; and represented in his sacred person the eponymous founder of the nation and its god. When colonies and local dependencies were founded, it continued still supreme - the city. Thus in this sense Thebes in Egypt was Ta Ape, Tyre was Kartha, Athens was Astu, Rome was Urbs; and Jebus in Palestine became Hieron Salamba, holy place of Solomon (or perhaps Peace), and is still called by the Arabs Kadosh, or holy place. Every city had a religion which only its own priesthood knew; which no plebeian or foreigner could take part in without being guilty of sacrilege; and hence the name of the divinity, and of the "place he had chosen to place his name there," were alike kept from the vulgar, and forbidden to be uttered. So Rome was "the city" unnameable; although we are told that the real appellation was Valentia, of which "Rome" is the Greek rendering. The cities of Bab-EL, Ninip, Assur, Tsur, Memphis, Thebes, Argos, Messene, Sparta, Athenai, etc., were unnameable in like manner till desecrated by conquest. "Tyrants" also, though better rulers than kings, were regarded as profaners of the old sanctities. - A. Wilder (ibid., pp. 48-9) The Chaldean "Saros." (Vol. 2I, p. 590) What was the period known as the "Chaldean Saros?" - Z.

Berossos says: "A saros is 3,600 years; a neros, 600; and a sossos, 60." My friend, Robert Brown, author of "Poseidon" and the "Great Dionysiak Myth," explains that in Akkad 60 was the unit. This was the sos. Ten sassi made a ner, and six neri made a sar. "Andrew Smith's" explanation (Vol. 2, p. 604) is excellent. - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 49) Tarpeian Rock. (Vol. 3, p. 59) "What is the Tarpeian Rock?" What the "Dighton Rock?" and the writing seen thereon at low tide? The Tarpeian Rock, or Tarpeja mons, is that part of the Capitoline Hill, on the western side, overhanging the river Tiber. Its present height is about 55 feet. It was formerly higher, but time, the wear by the elements, and earthquakes have shattered it and reduced its elevation. The Romans employed it for the execution of offenders against the State. Manlius Capitolinus who delivered the city when about to be taken by the Gauls, had embraced the cause of the people against the patricians. This anciently was the course taken by men ambitious to be "tyrants," or "people's kings" who were not sacerdotal personages. Persistratos and his son, Gelion, and his successor, were such. Manlius was accused of aiming at regal power, tried and acquitted by the comitia. But Camillus, his personal enemy, becoming dictator, procured his condemnation by the Curiae, a patrician tribunal. It is said however that he was not thrown down the rock by virtue of any sentence, but only that his enemies hired a slave to assassinate him in that way. This occurred A.C. 381. The source of the name of the rock is not known. The legend of the maid Tarpeia opening the gates of the citadel to the Sabines is a fiction not worth repeating. The Dighton Rock, on Taunton river, Massachusetts, is covered with designs, pecked in the stone, possibly the figures of men and animals. The late Rev. Dr. Absolom Peters transmitted an account of them, I think with copy, to the Royal Society of Northern Antiquaries of Denmark, and a great many attempts have been made to show them to have been Runes. The learned Finn, Maguusen, indeed did render them into Old Norse, which purported that Thorfinn, the Northman with 151 followers took possession of the region, A.D. 1008. It is pretty certain that the bold Northmen did go into the region, and give its name to Mr. Hope Bay. He had just married a buxom widow up in Greenland, and set out to found a colony which should begin a new nation. At Buzzard's Bay where he wintered, his son Snorri was born, probably the first child of European parentage ever born on the continent. The country then was not so cold as now; corn grew wild, as well as the vine, and there was no snow in winter. The Esquimaux made living uncomfortable, and the Thorfinn decided not to remain. But, though he was the descendant of Amals, his literary talent was not well developed. The scrawls on the rock are as likely to be the production of a literary Mohegan as of a Dane, and indeed are more like Indian performances. - A. Wilder (ibid., pp. 87-8) Oneteen, Twoteen, Thirteen. (Vol. 3, p. 60) Why were not our numerals made uniform to read oneteen, twoteen, thirteen, etc., instead of "eleven," "twelve," etc? - Arun The reference to the derivation of the numeral were virtually as the "Arun" suggests. Eleven is from endleafon, end one, and leaf ten. Twelve, again is from twelfte, importing two and ten. Languages are not derived with critical regard to etymologies; even the Sanskrit, which Godfrey Higgins believed to have been constructed by priests as a sacred tongue, has irregularities. So the Old Saxon tehan (Sanskrit dasan) has been perpetuated in our word ten, crowding the end leaf into oblivion. In fact, despite the apparently more

convenient decimal mode of enumeration, the common people seem to hate it. The French peasants still use the anterevolutional weights and measures; our own people reluctantly gave up shillings and pence; and every English-speaking people detests the metric system. To this instinctive aversion I attribute the adherence to the words eleven and twelve in our language. (ibid., p. 89) Cosmo De Medici. (Vol. 3, p. 60) Why was Cosmo de Medici called the "Father of the People, and the Freer of his Country"? Cosmo de Medici was leader of the democratic party in Florence, as his ancestors had been before him. He was bold and outspoken in his criticisms of the ruling olligarchy, who procured his banishment in 1433. The next year he was recalled, and thenceforth exercised a ruling influence over the affairs of the Republic. He was careful to preserve the country in peace. He was the patron of the Platonic philosophy, art, and liberal science; and however ambitious to be first, he gradually and successfully labored for the good of his fellow-citizens. Hence, in their gratitude, they gave him the title borne by Cicero, and several of the emperors, Father of his Country. - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 89) Names of the Graces, Fates, and Furies. (Vol. 3, p. 172) What were the mythological or classical names of the three Graces, Fates, and Furies? The Graces were denominated Charites by the Greeks. Some writers attach great importance to the radical sounds in this designation - K, r, t (or s); and certainly many classic and other mythologic names are formed from these sounds; as the Harits of India, Apollo's title of Chrestos, etc. The three charities were named Aglaia (brilliancy), Euphrosyne (joyous mind), and Thalia (bloom). Nonnos, however, at a later period named them Pasithea (all-divine), Peitho (persuader), and Aglaia. The Spartans and earlier Athenians, however, had but two. Homer makes their number unlimited and represents them as daughters of Aphrodite; doubtless, as geniuses inspiring hilarity, admiration, love. Another writer has set them forth as daughters of Helios and Aglaia, - the sun and his splendor. They were generally depicted by artists as nude, but Sokrates, himself a sculptor of merit, represented them with garments. It was an Athenian jest that he clothed the Graces, but they did not clothe him. In the later Christian category among the various changes and new adaptations of the old forms, the three Graces become Faith, Hope, and Charity. The Furies are named the Eringes and Eumenides - the angry ones, the daughters of kindness. We can take our choice. They, too, have a record somewhat confused. When Demeter, the Great Goddess-Mother is pursued by Poseidon (The ante-Olympian god of Greece and Libya primitively the father of Pallas-Athena and Persephone) she is designated by Pausanius and Kallimachos, as Erings. The name comes from the old Aryan dialect, and in Sanskrit is Saran-ga. Max Muller makes the last the real name of Helen. Homer and other writers use the word Erings abstractly as cursing, guilt, abstraction. There were originally an indefinite number of them; and indeed Aischylos has a whole chorus of them in pursuit of Orestes, and they seem to be the personified stings of remorse. He calls them Semnai, the revered ones. Euripides does not limit their number; but he twice calls them the Three. Apollodorus names them Tisiphone (the avenger), Megaria (the sorceress), and Alekto (the never-pausing). The name Eumenides carries us back to remembrance of the Persian Gathas and litanies, where Vohu-maingo is made very

prominent. The term means literally - daughters of the good mind; hence, the gracious ones, very properly, no doubt; for all these terms ought to be regarded in the good sense primarily. The daughters of the Good Mind cheer the good with delightful thoughts and memories; they are Dirae and Furies only to the wrong-doer. The torch and thong of serpents mean good as well as evil. They were represented as daughters of the Night, denoting the Unknown Past; and as dwelling in Erebus where the souls or shades of all men dwelt. The Fates, Parcae, or Moirai are in like manner made three by later classic writers. Homer was but one, Moira, and in the Odysseia uses the term abstractly as we do, in the sense of personal destiny. The signification of moira is part, the part apportioned, lot or allotment. Fatum is that which is pronounced. Usually the Supreme divinity was considered to be arbiter of fate; but Aischylos makes Zeus also subject to it. Still, the Olympian Zeus was only a "Younger God," and even Plato in the Timaros describes him as subordinate to him who is prior to the First God and King. Hesiod represents the Fates as daughters of Zeus and Themis (Supreme Law); Plato, or Anarche or Necessity. Their number are then set forth as three: Klotho (the spinner), Lachesis (the measurer of the allotment), and Atropos (the unchanging.) In the 7th Book of the Odysseia the three are all named Clothes, or avengers of destinies. Plato in the Vision of Eros has depicted how the work of the Three was performed. It is very similar to the Buddhistic doctrine of Karma made Hellenic. The pre-existent, or rather, the onward-moving souls, or immortal selfhoods each choose a lot in a new term of human existence. With this allotment comes a daemon or guardian, and so the course on earth is practically determined by the child thus made. Every soul is its own fate. In due time they pass within the cycle of the objective, and are born on earth. The three Urd or Weird sisters, made famous in Macbeth are but the same as the Clothes. They are the Norus that sit beside the roots of Yggdrasil, the famous Ash-tree, and water its roots from the well of Urd - the fountain of the Eternal Past. They are not often called "witches," although like these they are the witty or knowing ones. Their names are Urd (the Past), Verdandi (the Present or becoming to be), and Skirld (the Future.) Associated with these is Hel or Rach-Hel, called Hecate by Shakespeare - the Queen of the world of souls. Their names in various regions are different. In folk-lore they are Wibet, Worbet, and Ainbet. In Austria they are also named Mechtild, Ottilia, and Gertrand; also Irmina, Adela, and Chlothildis. The idea behind them is the soul. But how will our Matilas, Erminias, Adelas, Ottilies (or tillies), Clothildes, and Gertrudes relish the source of their names? "These maids shape the lives of men, and we call them Norus. There are yet more names, namely, those who come to every man when he is born (or begotten) to shape his life; and these are known to be of the race of the gods; others are of the race of elves, and others yet of the race of dwarfs." - (Younger Edda, VII) It is not very hard to perceive that all these mythic personages are similar in origin and character. The fate or necessity which they purport, like the Karma, is rather in the individual guiding and inspiring him, than are arbitrary powers over him compelling his acts and procuring results. - A. Wilder (ibid., pp. 192-4) Who Betrayed a City? (Vol. 3, p. 187) Who was the person that betrayed a city, and asked as a reward the rings worn upon the fingers of the soldiers, and was crushed to death beneath their incumbent weight? - B.F. Burleson, Oneida Castle, N.Y.

In the semi-fabulous history of "Regal Rome," the maid Tarpeia is said to have betrayed the city to the Sabines, asking as her reward "what they carried on their arms," meaning the bracelets; but King Tatius wilfully misunderstood it, and so he and his soldiers crushed her to death beneath their shields. Another legend represents her as smitten with love for the Sabine King. This story, however, is a relic of Roman folk-lore, and nothing beside, like the kindred tale of Cloelia running away from "Lars Porsenna of Clasiour," it was probably devised to perpetuate the notion that Rome had never been conquered. Yet the existence of a patrician element entirely Sabine in the population, and of Etrurian sacred rites, indicates both peoples as becoming lords over the Latin commonalty. Ancient cities, or rather commonwealths, were never founded as Romulus and Remus are fabled to have began Rome. The colonists had their wives with them. Again, as in the pretended absence of women, Sabine girls are said to have been made wives by capture, so the maid Tarpeia would not have been left unwedded; or if she had been her Sabine blood would have led her to lead her countrymen into the city without requiring any bribe. - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 210) Greatest American Thinkers. (Vol. 3, p. 188) I can hardly admire the acumen of "E.B.H." in regard to "the four greatest American thinkers." Rowland G. Hazard of Rhode Island is peer to them all and probably more profound than any one of the number. I would hardly have thought to include Stephen Pearl Andrews or Andrew Jackson Davis in such a category, although Andrews was versatile and scholarly. I have imagined John Greenleaf Whittier as profound as Emerson. The German thinkers are perhaps Kant, Goethe, Fichte, and Jocobi, and some credit is due to several others who are less honored. Usually the prophet is without honor in his own age and country; and even Sokrates was not esteemed great till he had drank the hemlock. Paracelsus is little honored or even understood, yet he deserved consideration. Spinosa, too, was a powerful reasoner. - A.W. (ibid., p. 213) (Question:) Jannes and Jambres. (Vol. 2, p. 607.) From what book or writings did Paul get the names of the two magicians of Pharaoh? He says, "Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses." - II Timothy iii, 8. We do not find the names in the Old Testament. - Observer It is not altogether certain that these characters are alluded to anywhere in the Old Testament. Tradition, to be sure, sets them forth as the magicians whom Pharaoh set up against Moses, but these names are hardly Egyptian, but rather Semitic. Pliny (xxx, 2) has mentioned Moses, Jannes and Jotapes as founders of a magian theosophy and art, many thousands years after Zoroaster; and this Moses is named by Juvenal as author of an Arcane Book: "Traditit arcano quaecunque Volumine Moses." This Moses seems to have been a Talmudist, in which case the others may have been his associates who had set themselves up against him, as Korah and the 250 representatives of the congregation did against the Great Lawgiver. (Numbers XVI) Of course, the statement of the Gospel of Nicodemus must be taken for what it is worth. A.W. (ibid., p. 214)

Symbols of the Four Elements. (Vol. 3, p. 179) "Djafar's" emblem is not quite perfectly described. The square denotes the earth; the circle, water; the triangle, fire; the crescent, air; and the oval aether, or supernal atmosphere in which divine beings have their abode. The symbols were transmitted from one worship to another; the legends and myths being changed to fit the new conditions. The cross, the circle, the triangle, as well as their grosser equivalents, the stocks of trees, and stones, altars, etc., were religious emblems for thousands of years. - A.W. (ibid., p. 214) Jawbone Twice (Vol. 1, p. 309) Since receiving the note from this correspondent we have examined several translations in our library and find that the New Revised version has "jawbone" twice, and the word "smitten" for "slain." The translation by Julia E. Smith, of Glastonbury, Conn., published in 1876 reads: "And Sampson will say, With the jaw-bone of the ass, a heap, two heaps, with the jaw-bone of the ass I struck a thousand men." The Douay version (Catholic) which is from the Latin Vulgate, has, "And he said, With the jaw-bone of an ass, with the jaw of the colt of asses I have destroyed them, and have slain a thousand men." - A.W. (ibid., p. 215) (Question:) Ypsilanti. (Vol. 3, p. 188) What is the origin of the name of the town in Michigan called Ypsilanti? Alexandro Ypsilanti raised the standard of revolt against the Turkish ascendency in Greece, prior to Marko Bozzaris. The town in Michigan was named for him. - A.W. (ibid., p. 215) The Ephesian Letters. (Vol. 3, p. 188) What are the epistles known as the "The Ephesian Letters," and who is the author of them? - Andrew Smith I had supposed the "Ephesian Letters" to be a kind of Runic characters - whence their other designations of "Spells." Certain "barbarous names" or phrases were supposed to have mighty influences in telestic rites, even to fixing the stars in their places. Ephesus was the focus of magic or Persian theosophy. "The magic formulae known everywhere by the term of 'Ephesian writings' (grammata) or spells," could hardly be considered as epistolary. The authorship can therefore be imagined. - A. Wilder, M.D. (ibid., p. 216) One First Cause. (Vol. 3, p. 188) Sir Thomas Browne seems to have followed Aristotle, who indicated all "second causes" as Material, Formal or Essential, Moving or Efficient, and Final. But it is apparent that the Final Cause, the eidos, was similar to the idea or exemplar of Plato. - A. Wilder, M.D. (ibid., p. 216) "Dough-Faces." (Vol. 3, p. 187.) Who called the friends of the Missouri Compromise, 'dough-faces?'" John Randolph has the reputation of first denominating the Northern men "doughfaces" who supported or rather acquiesced in the Missouri Compromise. He was of cynic temper, a hater of his kind, ready at opprobrious epithets and utterances; and like other men of that region, heartily despised all Northern men, who for interested or even patriotic motives, consented to yield to the exorbitant requirements of Southern leaders, for the sake

of peace. They were called dough-faces because they could be molded like dough in the molder's hands. - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 217) Reduplicated Words. (Vol. 3, p. 188.) Why is the word for "circle" reduplicated in nearly all languages? For examples: English, "circle,"; Latin, "circus"; Greek, "kuklos"' Hebrew, "gilgal"? - Josephus Why the word circle is reduplicated is easier to surmise than to demonstrate. "Josephus" might have increased examples. Gilgal in the Keltic, also cyre or kirk, and our word church are of the number. The Latin is evidently a cognate dialect of the Keltic; and so cyre, or stone circle became circus in Latin, and church in Saxon English. A circle was a sacred enclosure, and gilgals as well as dolmens and stone henges were universal. The Vetal-worship in India still makes use of them. There are many other analogous similarities in ancient languages. Bema, a platform is rendered "high plain" in the bible; Chiton, a coat or tunic in Greek, appears in Genesis III, 21, and other places. Our words coat and cotton have the same etymology. Machaira the Greek word for sword is also found in the Hebrew text of Genesis XLIX, 5. Lamachos (Homer), Lamech, and Machir, all mean expert with the sword. The examples are a few out of many. Doubtless the Aryan, Skythic, Ethiopic, and Semitic families of languages had a common origin, and are divergents of a first tongue. - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 217) "The Taciturn." (Vol. 3, p. 140) Why was William "The Taciturn" called the Father of his Country? - GiMeL William the Taciturn led the military tribes of the Netherlands against the Spaniards in the reign of Philip II. Hence he was called the Father of his Country. - A.W. (ibid., p. 217) Earth-Eaters. (Vol. 3, p. 140) It is stated that in some parts of the world the earth is edible and is eaten by the natives. Where is this done? - GiMeL Earth is eaten by the natives in some parts of Brazil and Columbia. It is not common earth, however, but contains the remains of animals, etc. - A.W. (ibid., p. 219) Ancient Etrurians. What is really known historically and ethnologically of the ancient Etrurians? - Z. The Etrurians have constituted one of the enigmas of history. Tradition identified them with the Lydians; but in language there was little resemblance between the two peoples. The endeavor to show them Pelasgic has long been given up. Their designation of Rasena is apparently from the Semitic term raso, chief; but it may only mean primitive. Their god Janus it will be remembered was priscus, or orld. The following inscriptions on a libation-bowl indicates their relationship as far as language is concerned: EKUTHUTHIIALZRECHUVAZESULZIPULTHESUVAPURTISURAPRUEUNETU RAREKETI. Several able archeologists tried their hand at this "atrocious spell" to little purpose. With no knowledge of the language except conjectural, the division into words was impossible. The Oedipus for this Sphinx finally appears in the person of Mr. Robert Brown, Jun., Prestgate House, Barton-on-Humber, England. Mr. Brown has been a very diligent student of Oriental learning; and his treatises entitled Poseidon; The Great Dionysiak

Myth; Aratos; The Unicorn; Law of Cosmic Order; Myth of Kirke; Eridanus; and Zoroaster, are most valuable. Of later years he has been pursuing investigations into the literature of Sumir and Akkad, and made himself a master of the cuneiform characters and the figurative oriental style. The Akkadians, a Turanian people cognate with the Chinese were early occupants of the Euphrates valley, and the Semitic Assyrians adopted their religion and mythology. The same analogy holds completely in the relations of the Etrurians to the early Romans. Mr. Brown accordingly endeavored to interpret the inscriptions, using the Akkadian as his key. The following shows his success: Etruscan. EKU - THUTHII - AL - Z - RECHU 1. Akkadian - Aku - Tutu - ... - ... - rakki English - O Moon! of the setting sun daughter the queen VA - ZEL va - Zer and of-the-desert ESULKI PULTH ESU VA PURTISURA 2. Essakam - Pul - essa - va - Pul Zur Triple Revealer! thrice and Sovereign lady? PRU E UNE TURAREK ETI 3. Pur - a - une - turr-kir - essi-b On the ground water I pour out to the Lady Moon. The close resemblance of the Etruscan and Akkadian words is as significant as remarkable. Mr. Brown traces also the names of divinities nearly alike in the two languages. It appears evident, therefore, that the two peoples were affiliated; and neither of them Aryan nor Semitic. - A. Wilder, M.D., Newark, N.J. (The Bizarre. Notes and Queries, A Monthly Magazine of History, Folk-Lore, Mathematics, Mysticism, Art, Science, Etc., S.C. & L.M. Gould, Manchester, N.H., 1887, Vol. 4, pp. 284-6) Darwinism or Darwinianism? Zorasterism or Zorasterianism? (Vol. 4, p. 344) Which is the more correct mode to express the ism in proper nouns? - J.J.J. It is possibly more correct to write Darwinianism, Zorastrianism, etc., but usages permits the elimination of the abjective syllables. We accordingly say symbology for symbol-ology, idolatry for idol-olatry, etc.; and the French write Eclectism for Eclecti-cism. The current sets in for shorter spellings, and doubtless this is the better way. I don't approve of the phonetic savageries, but a radical reform should be established in orthography and pronunciation, and all people using the Roman alphabet should participate in it. - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 393) "Argos-Eyed, Hydra-Headed, Janus-Faced. (Vol. 4, p. 343) Give some information of the origin and use of the following words: Argos-eyed, Hydra-headed, Janus-faced, etc. - Jonathan The terms Argus, Hydra, and Janus, was borrowed from Roman and Hellenic mythology. Janus was a Hetrurian divinity, the pris-cus, or most ancient, and was represented with two faces. The Hydra was the archaic Bacchic serpent-symbol of Lerne,

the same category with the fire-breathing Dragon of Kolchis, the Dragon of the Hesperides, the Lion of Nemaia, etc., and like the Fiery Serpent of Akkad and the Indian Nagos, was depicted with many heads. Argus, appears to have been a personation of the Hindu god Indra. Both words have the same meaning, and each is represented with innumerable eyes. There is a phallic meaning to this symbol, which is not necessary here to explain. "Argus-eyed" means by implication incessantly watchful; "Hydra-Headed," having innumerable shapes; and "Janus-faced," equivocating, double-dealing, treacherous. - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 405) "The Path by which to Deity we Climb." (Vol. 4, p. 396) Give name of author, and poem, from whom was taken the following lines found in the preface to the "Divine Pymander" by Hermes Trismegistus - the P.B. Randolph edition. - S.C.G. "The path by which to Deity we climb Is arduous, rough, ineffable, sublime; And the strong, massive gates through which we pass, In our first course, are bound with chains of brass. Those men the first, who, of Egyptian birth, Drank the fair waters of Nilotic earth, Disclosed by actions infinite the road, And many paths to God, Phoenicia showed; This road the Assyrian pointed out to view, And this the Lydian and the Chaldean knew." This was said to be an oracular utterance of the Klarion Apollo, and is found in Eusebius. A literal rendering would be about as follows: "The Way to the Blessed ones is very rough and difficult; the first approaches to it are by the two-leaved gates set in brass; the paths are by the nature of things ineffable, which the first of mortals, they who drink the delicious waters of the Nilotic land show forth by unceasing action. The Phoenicians, the Assyrians, the Lydians, and the race of Hebrews also, taught the Ways of the Blessed ones." Thomas Taylor, the first translator of the Platonic writings into English, rendered the words into verse as the questioner has quoted it, substituting Chaldeans for "Hebrews." He believed that Aristotblus or Eusebius himself had tampered with the text, and that Chaldeans was the original word used. This is more than probable. The Chaldeans were a very ancient people, originally of Akkadian origin, skilled in astral lore and arcane learning; while the Hebrews were far more recent and totally unqualified to be classed with enlightened nations like the Lydians, Egyptians, and Assyrians. The questioner hardly need to be told that the Path of the Blessed Ones means exoterically the orbits of the fixed stars or superior gods, and esoterically the "Way of Holiness," which no impure being can walk upon or ever find. Hence, it is the way from the world of sense to the higher region of spirituality and intelligence, and is entered by the "two-leaved gates." Thus, as in death, a person having once passed through these, he can never return to the common world-life as he was before. The woman once a wife is no more a maid. - A. W. (ibid., p. 429)

The Argonauts. (Vol. 4, pp. 395, 401) Who were the fifty-four argonauts? - Milton E. Bond. The story of the argonauts relates to arcane or initiatory rites. Each of the heroes is connected with a local tradition and with the worship of a people or state. This mythos blends them into one dramatic poem, and thus shows them to belong to a common religion, common alike to the states of Greece and the countries of middle and western Asia. The dragon of Kolchis, the hydra of Lerne, the lion of Nenaia, the minotaur of Krete and Phrygia, and the demon Cacus of Aventine, were of one genus and family. In the argonautic group, the rites of Zagreus, the Kabeiri, the Asklepiads, and others, were collected. I suppose that the poem of Appollonius Rhodios gives the names of those who are said to have participated in the "Expedition." A copy of the poem is in the New York State Library, and doubtless the worthy librarian, Mr. H.A. Homes, if requested, would cheerfully furnish them. - A. Wilder, M.D. (ibid., pp. 433-4) Jew, Hebrew, or Israelite - The Difference. (Vol. 4, p. 412) A Jew is a Judean; formerly one of the tribe and then of the kingdom of Judah; and later an inhabitant of Judea. Hebrew is from the Hebrew word Eber, "over." The passover or pascha undoubtedly was a custom reminding the Abrahamids of their emigration, and the crossing of the Euphrates at Tiphsah or Thap, sakos; and from that crossing they were called Hebrews or over-people. Iberia has the same meaning. Abraham is the first one called a Hebrew (Genesis XIV, 13). The term, however, is never given to his reputed descendants, the Idumeians, Ishmaelites, Midianites, and Nabatheans of Arabia; and I suspect that they were Erythaians from India, or Semites of an anterior descent. The Israelites were the reputed posterity of Jacob, surnamed Israel. In the Bible they are first described as the Abrahamids and Arabs that left Egypt and ruled in Palestine; but at the death of Saul the Judeans made David their king, and so their adherents were largely included under that name. I doubt the existence of "twelve" tribes. That is astrological. The Canon was established by the Makkabees about 200 B.C.; and the "historical books" were compiled or revised at that time. The evidence that the Patriarchs, Judges, and [---?] kings were historical characters is very slight. - A. Wilder, M.D. Newark, N.J. (The Bizarre. Notes and Queries, A Monthly Magazine of History, Folk-Lore, Mathematics, Mysticism, Art, Science, Etc., S.C. & L.M. Gould, Manchester, N.H., 1888, Vol. 5, p. 1) Questions and Answers: Songs of a Nation. (Vol. 3, p. 59) The songs of a nation are contrasted with its laws. In Greek, nomos was first a song; afterwards a law. The code of Drako consisted of thesmoi - laws or ordinances of the gods; the institutes of Solon were nomoi; so the saying, "Give me the making of the songs of a nation and I care not who makes its laws," relates to the popular rule as superseding the Eupatrid or higher-caste domination. The Shamrock. (Vol. 3, p. 76) The shamrock is the trefoil, or three-leaved Oxalis. It is the same as the device on cards called "clubs," and is also the equivalent of the cross. It is "pagan" to the core; common alike to Ireland and Ceylon, and everywhere meaning the same - the triad God. The sacred fig is three-leaved, and therefore a symbol of life.

The Vatican. (Vol. 3, p. 76) Vatican is from vates, a mantis or prophet-priest. It is a "pagan" word and belongs to paganism. Baugh-Naugh-Claugh-Paugh. I suspect that this long word is but a merry jest, and that bonnyclabber is all that is meant. Pompeii. (Vol. 3, p. 76) Pompeii is a Greek name from Pompaios, a name of Hermes as the psychopompos or leader of souls from this world to the next, and of the procession of candidates for initiation, who were mystically dead. Herculaneum of course is from Hercules. Gypsies. (Vol. [3], p. 76) Gypsies were called Bohemians as having been supposed to have originated in Bohemia. Penny-a-liners and other writers having no permanent work or employment also are so called by analogy. "A" in Sanscrit Words. (Vol. 3, p. 140) The letter a preponderates in Sanskrit words because in the original there is no vowel, and yet a vowel sound is required. The Semitic dialects have the same peculiarity. A short a is adopted as nearest the genuine sound. "Djafar." (Vol. 3, 121) Djafar, or Giafar, was immortalized in "Arabian Nights Entertainments" as the Virgin of Haran al Rasit the celebrated Khalif. - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 6) Questions and Answers: Portraits of Christ. (Vol. 3, p. 441) The portraits of Christ were taken from those of Serapis. It is idle to believe in any genuine one. I would just as soon believe in the one taken by the bloody sweat on Veronica's handkerchief - absurd alike. Double Consciousness. (Vol. 4, p. 397) The subject of "Double Consciousness," in your November No., deserves careful study. Perhaps more than one soul tampers with our physical organism. Then, too, we have two cerebral hemispheres, not identical in functions; a "head" and "heart;" a cerebral and ganglial nervous system. We feel and accordingly act; we think and determine action. Pelasgi, Pelasgos. (Vol. 4, p. ---) I doubt the name Pelasgi being from pelasgos, the sea. I would quicker derive it from palaios, ancient. It would be as accordant with etymology. So, too, would Pelesti, or Philistines - probably a cognate people. The Cherethites of the book of Second Samuel were Creti; and Pelethites, Philisti. If so, they were Pelasgi. At any rate there is no other conjecture more plausible. The Rosicrucians. (Vol. 4, p. 433) I was interested in the paragraph on Rosicrucians. If the rose had a part in the name, etymology would dictate it to be spelled Rosa-crucians. Yet the impaled rose has a phallic rendering. The rose on the cross, of course, is a phonetic ideograph. So the ass's head in the Judean temple was phonetic of the Hebrew letters for IHVH - one being Ao, and the other Yao. The Aryan term Ros or Ras is like Hebrew for chief, origin, leader. The crucified chief, may be so understood. All true parables have a plurality of interpretations; each true on its own plane. "God is a circle whose circumference is everywhere, and whose center is nowhere to be found." (Vol. 3, p. 62; 4, p. 412) Emerson says: "St. Augustine described the nature of God as a circle whose center was everywhere, and its circumference nowhere." I supposed this was from Hor-Apollo. - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 36)

Kinney's Statue of Ethan Allen. (Vol. 5, p. 56) I know little about Kinney's Statue of Ethan Allen. I have seen it stated, however, that the statue of him at Montpelier was modeled, so far as the body is concerned, from the figure of General Ethan A. Hitchcock, his worthy grandson. This would hardly be the case, except there was a close resemblance. General Hitchcock was hardly a man to permit such a thing on any other ground. There is a picture of General Hitchcock in Frank Moore's "Diary of the Rebellion." He was a man, as I remember, about five feet ten inches high, perhaps a little less; wellformed body, and a benignant countenance. He had a strong proclivity for mystic, philosophic, and other literature closely relating to that. The little monograph on "Alchemy, or the Hermetic Philosophy," which I published in 1869, was a synopsis of his book entitled "Alchemy, and the Alchemists," and met his approval. He died in Florence, Georgia, in 1870. A. Wilder (ibid., p. 87) Benjamin Franklin and His Son. Some twenty years ago, a newspaper published an account, the authorship of which was attributed to Bishop White of the Protestant Episcopal church. It stated substantially that the Bishop was lodging at a public house, and after retiring for the night, became incidently the listener to a conversation. A father and a son, the former a "whig," and the latter a "tory," at the outbreak of the American Revolution, had each conveyed his property to the other, to save it from confiscation, with the implied understanding that the one belonging to the successful party should afterwards restore to the other his part. In the dispute which the bishop overheard it transpired that the two were there, and the son was pleading with his father to make the promised restitution, which the latter refused. Next morning the Bishop learned that his fellow lodgers were no other than Dr. Franklin and his son Governor Franklin of New Jersey. This story has the plausible characteristic of being in keeping with Dr. Franklin's Yankee thrift; but in most other respects, is hardly creditable. Can any of your readers give light, or the truth? - A.W. (ibid., p. 88) The Tower in Siloam. (Vol. 5, p. 68) We appear to be without historic evidence in relation to the falling of the tower in Siloam. The fountain there was particularly celebrated as sacred, and the peculiar ebbing and flowing of its waters were also notable. Anciently beside the sacred wells were set up pillars of upright stone, or towers - the latter being symbols of the Divine Father, and the other of the Mother. Thus, Adonijab the elder son of King David was crowned by the stone pillar of Zoheleth, which was by En-Rogel, as the Fountain of Rogel. Judea was subject to earthquakes; and several occurred during the reign of Tiberias. Probably one of those over-threw the fire-tower of Siloam. It bore Phoenician inscriptions. - A.W. (ibid., p. 91) Deucalion. (Vol. 5, p. 69) The name Deucalion has probably no numeral reference whatever. Sanskrit scholars derive it from the designations Deva and Kala, which would indicate the god Siva, the primal nature-god of India, whose worship, as Hyde Clarke, Forlong, and others show, was once universal. Claims of Descendants. (Vol. 5, p. 68) The claims of descendants from ancestors in Europe or England constitute the poorest kind of romance. To use an Hibernicism: 1. The courts and governments will not let these estates go out of the country; and 2d, there are none to go out. I am very grateful to my venerable ancestor who left England just 250

years ago, that she gave a quit-claim to all the family estates. I have therefore refrained from going unshod while waiting for shoes from Purley Hall. - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 93) Zem Zem. (Vol. 5, p. 69) Wells have always been a necessary feature to ancient temples. The well of Zem Zem situate near the boundary of Yemen or Southern Arabia, was remarkable for its constant supply of not over-pure water, and was a great resort of caravans, when the peninsula was rich and fertile in prehistoric periods. After the change of the routes of commerce the region was abandoned, but some fourteen centuries or more ago, was occupied anew and everything restored. The goddess Al Haua was worshiped; the black stone and holy well were her symbols. This was in keeping with ancient practice. The Venus-Aphrodite of Paphos was represented by an oval stone; the Great Mother on Mount Pessinus in Asia Minor was commemorated in like manner; and we are told that Astarte finding a star or meteoric stone, consecrated it and placed it in the "Holy Island," Tyre. The black stone at Mekka and Holy Well were representations of the Goddess, and the Kaba or mystic cone or traph was her sanctuary. The more modern succeed the ancient religions, chiefly by changing of names, while retaining the things signified. So we have the crescent of Venus as the standard of Islam; the Kaba is still the resort of pilgrims, as in pagan times, and the sacred well Zem Zem is as holy in the present faith as it ever was in the palmy days of the former rites. Wells appear so universal that every little tribe appears to have had its holy fount. The three Urd-sisters of Norse mythology - the Weird sisters of Macbeth - sit by the Urd fountain, water the roots of the world-tree Ygdrasil, and parcel out to mortals their allotments. In the bottom of the well of Mimir lay truth, wisdom and knowledge - doubtless "the knowledge of good and evil." Ingenious scholars derive the name Athena Pallas from Aith and ain, the Fountain of the sun, which would intimate the Athenian goddess to denote the personified well of the Akropolis. - A. Wilder (ibid., pp. 94-5) Franklin's Letter to Strahan. (Vol. 5, p. 72) "You are now my enemy, and I am yours." J.B. McMaster says: "Another incident in his life that is commonly misunderstood, is the famous Strahan Letter; we mean, ending, 'you are now my enemy, and I am yours.' We know of no collection of his works and letters in which this document is not treated as a piece of spirited and sober writing. Yet it was no more than a jest. Had this not been so, all friendship, all correspondence, between the two would have ended the day the letter was received. But no such falling-out took place, and they went on exchanging letters long after the war had seriously begun." - Atlantic Monthly, October 1887, p. 326. - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 95) Yggdasil. (Vol. 5, p. 148) Yggsdasil is the great "World-Ash" of the ancient Skandinavians, Fraser's Magazine derives the name from Y-g-g-r, the Thinker, the Terrible - a name of Odin, and draga, to bear or carry. This makes the name mean a vehicle or ovator of Odin; and the tree is analogous to the Bo-tree and Banyan of India. It is the Tree of Life, of which every human being is a participant. To describe it, however, would require a treatise, and there are several works already that treat of it, among them, the Prose Edda, Mallet's "Northern Antiquities," Forlong's "Rivers of Life," etc. Rev. James Challen wrote a poem upon it. - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 190)

An Ancient Word. (Vol. 5, p. 148) Emanuel Swedenborg spoke repeatedly of an Ancient church and a most Ancient church. The latter of these was in direct communication with the celestial beings, as he was himself in his illuminated seasons. The Ancient church was less exalted, and was the possessor of the "Ancient Word" - a divine revelation given for their benefit and instruction. In his work, the "Apocalypse Revealed," he says: "Seek for it in China, perchance it may be found in Great Tartary." Every person must, and will, exercise his own judgment in regard to the illumination and character of Swedenborg. I do not dispute them; but I have surmised that he was a member of secret orders of learned men who possessed in their arcana, ancient faiths and doctrines which formerly dominated in the oriental world, and were afterward proscribed by the Roman church. It is plausible that the Hebrew Scriptures were more or less formed from older records. We find such phrases as the "God of Heaven" (Ahurmazd), "God of Truth" (Asha-Vahia), also "angels" and "princes" or Yazatas and Amshashands. That there were ancient sacred Scriptures, the two Aryan collections, the Vedas and Avesta, conclusively show. There were also the Baskets of the Buddhists, and others now well known to exist. Again, it is pretty generally believed among the learned that the earlier seats of the Aryans and other leading human races were in "Great Tartary," or somewhere in that region. The Khatans, Akkads, Eurythaens, Drairdes, and others, also appear in Archaic monuments, and traditions appear to have originated them. Semitic and Aryan races seem to have been of late development. The Chinese in the East, the Skyths, and Aethiopes were from that source. These people had religious and social polity, and letters. The late tribes about whom we have tried to construct history, were their offshoots, and derived their notions and customs from them. Whether, therefore, Swedenborg derived this arcana from intercourse with those having knowledge in these matters, and afterward wrote it out after his own style of allegory and correspondence, or whether angels spoke to him, and he was illuminated, it is very certain that what he said of an "Ancient Word" was borne out by facts, and that it is probably possessed by the intelligent classes in China. But who will know it when he finds it? - A. W. (ibid., p. 191) Thebes. (Vol 5, p. 148) It is probably that the name Thebes (in Egypt) only means the city, in the same sense of metropolis or "town." Thus Rome was called Urbs, and time reckoned anno Urbis condita, Athens was aster and Tyre was Kartha. Medina also signifies a dwelling-place - Daniel IV, 25-32, and v, 21. The Egyptian name is ta, the, and ape, city. - A. W. (ibid., p. 192) "By the Eternal." (Vol. 5, p. 31) President Jackson used to have the credit of using the phrase "By the Eternal" pretty often. When Nicholas Riddle refused to permit him to carry his civil-service policy to the extent of warning officers of the United States Bank, he is said to have declared his purpose to crush the bank, sealing it by that characteristic "swear." - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 192) Twelve Disciples. (Vol. 5, p. 148) It is not well to build too much upon accounts given in the Acts of the Apostles. The early Christian church did not recognize the book as genuine. It appears from Acts XVIII, that Apollos, an Alexandrian Jew, instructing and

teaching exactly the things about the Lord, came to Corinth and taught them, "Knowing only the baptism of John." The next paragraph states that Paul came to Ephesus and found some twelve disciples there, who were like Apollos, having received John's baptism, but gone no further. The apparent fact is that John was a brother or monk of the Essenian Fraternity, which had its schools in Alexandria, Arabia and Asia Minor. The baptism was a symbol of cleansing and beginning on a higher plane of thought and life. This is what the Greek word Metanoia, incorrectly translated repentance, really means. Essenism contemplated a living "while in, above the world." There were Essenians at Ephesus. In many respects they appear to have been Zoroasterian sentiment, and had secret rites and doctrines. Christianity as promulgated by Paul, was essentially different. The Metanoia, or repentance, is barely mentioned; baptism is slightingly spoken of. His thesis is "Jesus and the Resurrection" - a gospel which was emphatically his own. The "Twelve Disciples" at Ephesus, would seem therefore to have been men, like Apollos, thoroughly instructed in the earlier doctrine, but in no way familiar with the Pauline gospel. They were by far the larger number. - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 194) Will-o'-The Wisp. (Vol. 5, p. 163) I think I have seen the luminous appearance in moist ground, known as igis fatuus or "Will-o'-the-Wisp." In these days when so much is known about spontaneous combustion, it can seem to be explained that some hydrous substance may be produced which will ignite spontaneously. - A. W. (ibid., p. 195) Macrocosm and Microcosm. (Vol. 5, p. 163) The term Mikros Kosmos is found in a life of Pythagoras. The compounds macrocosm and microcosm are not correctly formed, and so are not found in classic literature. The latter term appears in a work of Isidorus Hispalensis, bishop of Sevill, Origineum sive Etymologiarum, Liber XX, in the seventh century. Thomas Norton, writing on alchemy four centuries ago, declares the "philosopher's stone" to be microcosmus and Galen used the phrase brachys kosmos. A. W. (ibid., p. 204) Abstain From Beans. (Vol. 5, p. 163) The maxim of Pythagoras "Abstain from beans," has had many interpretations, and perhaps the right one has not been given. The popular one is based on the practice of voting by beans, and would be a direction that most philosophers prefer to follow: to keep clear of political strife. Others, however, affect the physiological explanation - that beans are heating and hard of digestion, accordingly unsuitable. The philosopher is said to have convinced an ass of this, and the donkey ever after eschewed them. In Plutarch's Symposiacs reference is made to their orchid shape as being the reason. It is said that there are mystic phallic symbols on each side of the esculent. - A. W. (ibid., p. 204) Barchocab. (Vol. 5, p. 163) With the destruction of the Temple at Jerusalem, the Jewish people cherished the expectation of deliverance. Even the Christians of that time appear to have looked for something of the kind. The 24th chapter of Matthew contains predictions, which, after we look beyond the symbolic parlance, seems to be an account of the Advent of "the Son of Man" and the sending of angels or messengers to bring in the faithful Jewish people. "This generation shall not pass," says the oracle, "till all these things

be fulfilled." Rabbi Akiba, in the reign of Trajan, went through all the countries of the East preaching that the time had come to restore the kingdom. He was a man of wonderful parts; in the language of the Talmud he had been in Paradise and came forth in his right mind. A great secret fraternity existed, and the members were ready to rise as one man. Akiba had a leader in his mind. This was one Bar Chonta, whose name the Rabbi changed to Bar Cochba, or Son of the Star (Haggai II, 21). The insurrection began; Samaritans joined with the Jews, making an army of from two to five hundred thousand men. The war was one largely of extermination. In twelve months Palestine was free, and the war was carried into Egypt and Cyprus. A kingdom was set up at Jerusalem, a civil order established and money coined. The Great Synagogue was revived, and the name YAVA (Jehovah?) was made public, becoming the watchword of the new nationality. This name the followers of Jesus would not pronounce. It is conjectured that additions were made to the Gospels, in regard to this matter. Families were divided; Judean partisans denounced their Nazarean kindred to the authorities, to be scourged and even put to death as partisans of Rome. Hadrian recalled Julius Severus from Britannia, and sent him with an army against Palestine. The war was fiercely contested, but with the common result. More than half a million perished in the battles, and an innumerable host by famine, sickness, and fire at the sack of towns. The country became a desert. The conqueror was merciless in his vengeance. Bar Cochba perished in battle. Akiba was tortured and sent to the executioner, the last Jewish patriot. When Jerusalem fell the "abomination of desolation," the statue of Hadrian, was erected on the site of the sanctuary, and all compelled to do it homage. This was prior to the final overthrow; but the statue remained there for centuries, and every Jew who did not worship it was killed at once. The fate of the Davids of Mara was united upon the devoted race - and they became aliens in their former country. - A. Wilder (ibid., pp. 205-6) The Crescent. (Vol. 5, p. 163) A secret religion underlay ancient beliefs, and hence a significant symbolism was adopted. Strictly speaking, there are no new religions, but every one is in some way an outgrowth from the one preceding it. This is as true of Mohammedanism, as of any other. The founder had already been identified with the doctrines of Hanyf[?]; and after his death the same thing occurred as in other instances. His doctrines were revised and amalgamated with these of preceding faiths, and the symbols also were adopted. Some religions have a masculine outlook; others are feminine. Saivism and Vaishvavism in India, Yavism and Alahism in Palestine, Protestantism and Romanism in Christendom, are illustrations. The ancient Arabic religion of Mekka was female. Al Huza or Astarte was their goddess, and like the other Mothergoddess, had a black or magnetic stone for a symbol. It was built into the structure of the Kaaba, and is venerated like stone on Mount Pessinos, or at Kyprus. The holy day is Friday - the Venus' day and woman's day of the whole world - anciently the day of Good Fortune, 'til the Christian practice of executing criminals reversed the superstition. Their adoption made Islam acceptable to the goddess-worshiping populace. The crescent naturally came in with the other symbols of femininity. Its meaning is this: "The moon is the isthmus which joins the immortal principle of life to earthly existence." It denotes maternity, and hence the crescent constituted the horns of Ashtaroth-Karmaim, of Isis, and other divinities. Whatever the imams and others may teach to the populace, there is a

secret religion behind which the instructed ones understand. Their beliefs, many of them, are remarkably compatible with this sentiment. - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 208) Izzard and Zed. (Vol. 6, p. 252) Z was named izzard in the last and preceding centuries. It probably was a corruption of S-hard, Zed, from Zeta, is English, and we find it in Shakespeare. I think it is still used, as I have heard the same. - A. Wilder (The Bizarre. Notes and Queries, A Monthly Magazine of History, Folk-Lore, Mathematics, Mysticism, Art, Science, Etc., S.C. & L.M. Gould, Manchester, N.H., 1889, Vol. 6, p. 341) Isaiah Thomas - United States of Columbia. (Vol. 6, p. 11) I suppose that Isaiah Thomas was moved and inspired with the sentiments current at the time of his publications. Up to 1791, American Independence was the foremost sentiment. Next came the sentiment of Union. Mr. Thomas was a strenuous Federalist. About that time it was felt that the country ought to have a name of its own, in place of one that it shared with the whole Western continent. Mr. Thomas therefore placed the name of Columbia on his publications, in the hope to lead public sentiment to fix and crystallize upon it. It have seen the name, "United States of Columbia," on the title-page of one of his books. It did not succeed, but to the contrary, at the present time, only a resident of the United States is recognized in Europe as an "American." - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 346) Loud-Voiced Personages. (Vol. 6, p. 268) I will suggest several pretty loud-voiced personage, to select from. Stentor of the Iliad (Bk. v, lines 786-789) had a voice louder than fifty men. Then the angel of the Apocalypse who cried "as when a lion roareth, and when he had cried, seven thunders uttered their voices." If any thing can beat that it must be the trumpet of the archangel called up the dead. - A. W. (ibid., p. 347) The Name Pyramid. (Vol. 6, p. 300) The etymology of the term pyramid is conjectural. Though supposed to be Egyptian, the Egyptian designation of these structures was b'r-b'r. But in the Coptic, PI-RA ME signifies the high place of the sun, or Ra. The term puramis came into use in the Greek language as a designation of the Grecian structures, and also of geometric figures. The pointed cakes which were employed in the Bacchic worship were so named. It may have been from pur, pie; the structure denoting a flame, as the form is meant to express. The triangle standing on its base has that symbolic meaning, as denoting the occult fire which denotes life itself. - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 361) Hugonotorum Strages. (Vol. 6, p. 332) Strages signifies overthrow, destruction, and was a fitting term for the damnable massacre of St. Bartholomew, which made its perpetrators, participators and sympathizers perpetually infamous. - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 366) Hyponoia and Parousia. (Vol. 6, p. 332) One needs to see the book published anonymously in New York, to determine what the author meant by hyponoia and parousia. The two words are Greek and were used in the Mysteries. Parousia, or being present, was applied to denote the epiphany, or appearing of the forms of the gods in the initiatory rites; and hyponoia denoted the under meaning, or interior sense of the second dramas,

which were acted on these occasions. Both terms appear in the epistles ascribed to Paul. First Corinthians XV, 23, reads: "Christ the first-fruits, then they of Christ in his parousia." First Timothy VI, 4, should read: "He is inflated with arrogance, comprehending nothing, but having a morbid craving in regard to controversies, and wars of words, out of which come malignity, contention, calumnies, and hyponoias. - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 367) First Name of America. (Vol. 6, p. 300) Does your correspondent mean America after the last discovery? If not, we may give him such names as Atlantis, Fusang, and the like, to choose from. The name by which Columbus knew the region was India, and he was pilato mayar de Indica. Hence Peru and Mexico were long known as "the Indies." It may not be amiss, however, to add that the name America is itself American, and not a misnomer from the first name of Alberico Vespuzio. It belonged to a range of mountains in Central America rich in gold, and signifies the most elevated. Naturally America was the first name which a gold-hunter would learn, and would be common in Europe. It first appeared on a map published in 1507 by a bookseller at St. Die (Vages), named Waltzemuller, or by affectation of Hellenic fame, Hylacomglas. Probably he adopted it as a man's name. This could be of a person with "Rabb. Talmud," "Mochus," and a few other personifications. In fine, the Americ mountains gave the continent its name. - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 372) Robert B. Thomas. (Vol. 6, p. 268) Robert B. Thomas, the almanac-maker, gave the following account of his enterprise. He desired to do business on his own account, and after several fruitless endeavors, waited upon Isaiah Thomas, who, he states, was not a relative, asking to take some of his almanacs to sell again. Mr. Thomas replied that he did not let his almanacs go, except to those of the trade. Mr. R. B. Thomas then began the publication of his own series. This was late in the last century, and the almanac is published now. I have read through and through the old almanacs by both Isaiah and Robert. My grandfather, in Barre, Mass., was for many years a subscriber to the Massachusetts Spy. The papers were preserved in the family with scrupulous care till 1834. Reading matter was scarce and costly in those days; and a large family of us made very thorough work of those archaic journals. My mother told me that Isaiah Thomas borrowed from an uncle a Bible to use in his office, whether as "copy" or to correct "proof" with, she could not tell. Mr. Thomas in 1776 read the Declaration of Independence to an audience in Worcester; and in 1826 read it again the 4th of July. For several years Isaiah Thomas, Junior, published the Spy. My mother and her sister had each an octavo Bible of Mr. Thomas's printing; and their step-mother, a philosophy. In June, 1887, I rode from Chicago to Jacksonville, Ill., by way of Peoria. Passing rapidly through a town I saw the name of Isaiah Thomas conspicuous on a building to the left. I was curious to know more about it but did not find out the name of the town even. - A. Wilder (ibid., pp. 372-3) "A Biped without Feathers." (Vol. 6, p. 332) Plato is reputed to have define man, the anthropos, as a "biped without feathers." Those who set the story going, also add, that Diogenes, the cynic plucked a cock and exhibited it at the Akademeia, with the words, "Behold, here is Plato's man." - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 394)

The Cabiri. Who were the "Cabiri" mentioned so often by classical authors? (N. and Q., Vol. 6, p. 396) The Kabeiri were the divinities most worshiped by the Phoenicians and other people cognate or in communication with them. Authorities differ as to the etymology of the designation. Henry O'Brien, in his "Round Towers," derives it from Guebre or Gheber, the fire worshipers of Persia. Mr. E. Pococke ("India in Greece") forms it from Cuvera, the Hindu god of wealth, "in simple language, the Khyber." He declares that "the Cuvera of the Hindus, the Pataikoi of the Phoenicians, the Cabeiri of the Greeks, are simply distorted records and distorted comments upon the plain facts of Bud'hist worship, Bud'hist industry, and Bud'hist wealth, abounding in the regions of the Khaiber." Hence, he changes their Roman appellative, Dii Potes, into Dii Bodhes or Budha-gods. Mr. Pococke also identifies the name with Khebrewi or Hebrews, and Hyperboreans. This sounds conjectural; yet it is by no means so absurd as some may think. Aristotle traced the Hebrews to a Hindu tribe, and the Spartans professed to be their kindred. Josephus himself identifies them with the Hyk-sos, or shepherds of Egypt. Parkhurst's "Lexicon" derives the name of the Kabeiri from the Hebrew word Khabir, abounding; but suggests a further etymology from Khi, like, and abiri, the Mighty Ones. It may very plausibly be formed from chabir, an ally or associate, one having magic power. Doubtless Hebron in Palestine thus derived its name, as the city of the Kabeiri. Its other designation, Kiriath Arba, the city of the Four (Great Gods) would seem to confirm this conjecture. It was evidently built by the Hyksos (Numbers xiii, 22); it belonged to the "sons of Heth" or Khitaians (Genesis xxiii), and was occupied by the Anokim, or anaktes, which was an appellation of the Kabeirian gods at Athens. Herodotus calls the Philistines of Ascalon Phoenicians. It is not improbably that they were not ethnically diverse from the Pelasgians of ancient Greece and Italy. The structures in those regions denominated Cyclopean, and sometimes considered Pelasgic were fabricated by Phoenicians. We are warranted therefore in regarding the Kabeirian gods as both Phoenician and Pelasgic - that the Samothrakian Kabeiri, the Potes of Rome, and the Pataki of the Phoenicians and Egyptians were the same divinities. Herodotus tells of the Kabeiri at Memphis, who were eight in number, and also states that the Pelasgians established their worship among the Samothrakians (Euterpe, 51). Movers declares that they were originally Assyrian divinities, and Lenormant states that the seven planetary gods were called Cabirim. As the seven divinities, Sin, Samas, Nebu, Istar, Nergal, Marduk, and Ninip, like the corresponding deities in other countries, had each a planet, this is sufficient explanation. Damaskios, however, names an eighth, Esmun or Asklepios, who, under various epithets, denotes the invisible spirit, or fire of life. The goddess Astarte, Ashtoreth, or the heavenly Venus, was also named Kabeira. This was in her character of Mother as bringing forth the phenomenal universe. Akusilaos says that Hephaistos (the Creator) and Kabeira had three sons and three daughters, the Kabeiri and the Kabeirids; and that each had a distinct worship. Herodotus quotes the tradition that Heppaistos or Ptah was father of the Kabeirian gods. They appear to have been represented by ithyphallic images. Different legends, however, seem to vary the number of these "Great Gods." Three or four seem to have been worshiped at Lemnos, Imbros, Samothrake, and in Asia Minor. Strabo does not always distinguish closely between the gods and the Korybantic priests; which is not to be wondered at, as the priests everywhere represented the deities and

uttered oracles in their name. Mnaseas names three by the arcane titles of Axi-Eros, AxioKersos, and Axio-Kersa - the good Eros, the good horned god, the good horned goddess. By these distinctions we may perceive the cosmogonic character of the cultus; Eros or love denoting the Supreme Principle, and the horned or Rayed divinities, the Creators of the phenomenal world. Mnaseas considers them as Demeter, Proserpina, and her abductor Hades, the same as the divinities celebrated in the eleusinia. A fourth, however, was introduced, - Kadmos, Kadmilo (Kadmi-El), Kasmilos, - by whom we are to understand the intellective thought which ministers to all, unites all, and leads to the higher life. It may be deduced, therefore, that there was an arcane worship of a common nature existing over all the East. It was called Kabeirian, as being the cultus of Power, like the Sakti-worship of India. We may identify the various national religions by their partaking of these characteristics. Whether personified as the goddess Mylitta, Istar, Astarte, Asa (Isis), Kybele, or Demeter, it was everywhere the worship of Motherhood, and the Power that brings the universe into existence. Of course a paternal deity was associated, but generally as a secondary character. The one was the Productive Power, the other the Energy which makes the process of the phenomenal universe active. The Kabeiri, therefore, were the superior divinities that personified the All-Potent Forces, and the Kabeiric Rites constituted the archaic religion which the old classics recognized, but for "religious reasons" never ventured to explain clearly. In them we have the exemplar of the Secret Societies of modern centuries. - A. Wilder (The Bizarre NOTES AND QUERIES in History, Folk-Lore, Mathematics, Mysticism, Art, Science, Etc., S.C. and L.M. Gould, Manchester, N.H., Vol. 7, 1890, pp. 2-4) Mephistophilus. What is the correct spelling of that character in Faust classically given as "Mephistophilus"? I have seen it Mephistopheles, Mephistophiles, Miphistocles, and Mefistofeles. (N. and Q., Vol. 6, p. 348) In regard to the varying orthographies of the name of Goethe's sprite, we should bear in mind that our ancestors were not over-nice about spelling. Chaucer multiplied his modes. Goethe names his evil genius, "Mephistopheles"; Christopher Marlowe has it "Mephistophilis"' and Shakespeare, "Mephostophilus." The latter is most accurate, as is evident. The word is compounded of the Greek terms, me, not, phosto, light, philos, loving; "he who loves not light." This accords with Mephisto's description of himself to Faust: "Part of that power not understood, Which always fills the lad." - A. Wilder (Ibid., p. 49) Ulysses; Calypso; Circe. What is the explanation of the detention of Ulysses in the Island of Ogygia by Calypso, the "concealer"? Also, how Ulysses was charmed in the Island of Aeaea by Circe, "the ring"? (N. and Q., Vol. 6, p. 332) To explain intelligently the story of Odysseia and its hero is a formidable task. The mystics have one interpretation; the philosophers, another; the natural-phenomenalists, another. The story is a mythos; the characters, personifications. My friend, Robert Brown, Jr., gives a very interesting exposition, quite plausible. Ogygia is a term akin to Okeanos and Agenor, the Archaic, the Primeval. Kalypso, the coverer or convealer, is the daughter of Atlas, the night-sky. She abode in the west, Amenti, Erebos, the world of the

beyond. Her "hollow caves" indicate the ancient cave-worship and initiatory rites; whence, their completion was called an apo-kalypsis, or coming from the concealment, and epopteia, or viewing from above. When Troy fell, and old life was ended, the warrior went into retirement till summoned forth to the new. Kirke, we are told, belongs to the category with Medeia. She and Kalypso were really "goddesses of life, light, and love." She was the Euphratean Istar transferred to European soil. The name means a circle, the round moon; and Aiaai, the moon-country, the mother-land, the first receptacle of life. The party of Ulysses, or Odysseus, it is observed, dwelt with Kirke, "the full circle of a year," a lunar cycle. The mystic veil of each goddess was the veil of Zeus, shutting in the night. The magic potion was compounded like that of Hekamede for Nestor, and Metaneira for Demeter at Eleusis, with "baleful drugs" added. Odysseus, leaving Kirke, repairs immediately to the world of the dead; suggesting that the whole story has direct connection with such matters. In short, we may set down the Odysseia as a mythos, allied very closely to the oriental legends, Pelasgic fables, and old folk-lore of unknown antiquity. They all bear upon the problem of the universe, the experiences of the soul, and the life eternal. A. Wilder (ibid., pp. 70-71) Aesculapios and Asclepios. (Vol. 8, p. 258) The names Aesculapios and Asclepios are not easily accommodated with an etymology. If we might take liberties like E. Pococke, in his "India in Greece," it would appear easy enough to restore the digamma and spell it: "Vais'-kul-api," lord of the Vaisya or yeoman class. But, unfortunately, the divinity seem to have been Oriental and not Aryan. His serpent-symbol and mystic rites are Semitic or Aethiopic. In the "Fragments" imputed to Sanchronithon he is made the eighth of the sons of Sydyk, or Sutech the Hittite-god, and is thus included among the Kabeiri as Esmun, or the Eighth. This divinity appears to have been the Baal Zebul of Phoenicia, the Haman or Moloch of Carthage, whose worshipers sacrificed their children to him as the Fire-Baal. The Egyptians had a god Emeph, Imopht, or Imhotemp, that was said to be the divinity Asclepios. The myth of Astronoe would assign to him the same role and character as Attis and Adonis, the emasculates. But nowhere did we find any Semitic or Eastern divinity with any such name. Asklepios was worshiped in Pelasgian and Dorian countries; his rites being only engrafted upon the eleusinian Mysteries at a later period. The serpent was always inseparable from them. A temple of Asklepios without the snake would have been like the modern evolutionary universe with omnific force and no divinity. It is apparent, therefore, that this god was Oriental or "Turanian." The nearest approach to the name in Hebrew and Arabic would be by combining the words, ais, kul and hi, and it would require some ingenuity to define the compounded term. It is therefore more probably Pelasgic and "barbarous," in the Khitan or Hittite language it might be found to mean "the highest chief" or father - Ata Ku Lab. - A. Wilder ((The Bizarre NOTES AND QUERIES in History, Folk-Lore, Mathematics, Mysticism, Art, Science, Etc., S.C. and L.M. Gould, Manchester, N.H., 1891, Vol. 8, p. 313) Kosmos. (Vol. 8, p. 258) Plutarch credits Pythagoras with first using the word Kosmos, in the sense of a "perfect arrangement." The Greek philosophic writers made the Kosmos to include the space included within the orbit of Saturn; beyond were the aetherial heavens. - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 313)

Philitis, or Philitoon. (Vol. 8, p. 258) Philitis or Philition is conjectured to have been a term to designate the Hyk-shos rulers of Egypt - probably the same as "Pelethite," or "Philistine." The elimination of the s, because of the offensive sibillation was not uncommon. The Assyrian Tablets denominate Ashdod and the country around it Philistia and the "Land of the Hittites." This seems to imply that the "shepherds" or Hyk-shos of Egypt were the "Turanian" people known as Khitans, Hittites, and other coincidences apparently justify it. The Hittites reverenced a sacred throne, carried with them a tenttemple in their wars, and were careful to jump over a threshold. The only argument in regard to their agency in the building of the Great Pyramid is the sentence of Herodotus. The structure was many centuries older than the Hyk-shos occupation of Egypt, and if Herodotus came near the truth, we must have to suppose Kheops and the fourth Dynasty to have been of that race. As he composed a Book of Worship and made innovations of a radical character, this is not impossible. There were reasons, however, for not letting Herodotus know, too. Another matter may deserve our attention. The earlier books of the Bible speak of a people called Rephaim. The fourteenth chapter of Genesis places them east of the Jordan; and the second and third chapters of Deuteronomy have similar statements. The Emim were accounted "giants" or Rephaim; also the Zanzummim, and Og king of Bashan. The valley northward of Jerusalem was called the Valley of the Rephaim; the Anakim that dwelt around Hebron were also of the same people, and the Book of Joshua (XI, 22) states that they remained at Gath, Gaza, and Ashdod. The twenty-first chapter of First Samuel narrates the slaying of four "sons of the Rephaim in Gath," to which number Goliath belonged. The term Rephaim is however also translated "giants, "physicians," "the dead." Thus, King Asaa when his feet were diseased, "sought not to the Lord," i.e. to the priests of the temple, "but to Rephaim"' and Joseph in Egypt employed Rephaim to embalm his father. Plainly enough the Rephaim of Palestine were a powerful and artistic race. The artisans of those times, however, were also called Kyklopeans, or Cyclops; and they wrought with the Phoenician art and tools. They may have been Palasgians, and they certainly belonged to Syria and Philistia. Hence, if we are to suppose that the Rephaim of Hebron, and the Philistines to have been of the same stock as the Hykshos of Egypt (Numbers XIII, 22), and it would be no great stretch of the imagination to place the Homeric legend of Polyphemos in the same category. They were "sons of Poseidon," the god of Lybia, and probably of the race of Shepherds or Hyk-shos expelled from Egypt. The Hykshos and Hittites were worshipers of Seth, Satoch, or Sedek, afterward the Egyptian Typhon; and Poseidon was worshiped by the Libyans and Grecians Pelasgians. All these peoples, it seems evident, were clearly related. - A. Wilder (ibid., pp. 353-4) Oannes. (Vol. 8, p. 258) I do not know of Dr. J.J. Garth Wilkinson's work "Oannes." The relation of Jesus to the archaic Fish-lore is attributed to a variety of causes. His birth it is said was announced by the messenger Gabriel at the time when the zodiacal sign Pisces became the sign of the opening of the Spring instead of the signs Taurus and Aries. This, however, is mythic. In the Talmud the Messiah is termed "Dag," or Fish. The sign of this advent, it was said, was the conjunction of the planets Jupiter and Saturn in the constellation Pisces. This might be the "Star in the East." But, passing by such frivolous notions, it may be taken into consideration that the Fish, and the Serpent, was a symbol

of "wisdom," and of course of the Logos or Word by which it was made known to mankind. The mouth of the Fish, the os tincae, is the door of passage into the world. Hence a human figure in the mouth of a Fish was expressive of human birth. Many gods were depicted in this way. Vishnu is so represented in his avatar as a Fish. The Kan-On of the Japanese is also pictured in this way. Lukianos mentions the goddess Der-Keto, or Atar-Gatis, in Phoenicia, as a woman above and a fish below. This was the Istar, or Venus of Askalon and Aphaka, the Astarte, or Ashtoreth-Karnaim of the Bible. The Dagon of Ashdod is said to have been also figured. The Hebrew word SAR (I Samuel v, 4), means what is left, also the aidoia; but not necessarily the fish. The term Dag, however, signifies a fish, and so Dagon may denote the fish personified, but Sanchuniathon gives it the meaning of Siton or bread-corn. The Assyrian god of wisdom, the sea and underworld was Haa or Ho-Anna. The fish, serpent, and triangle were his symbols, and he was also called Okakon, or udduk-anna, the Lord ascending up the sky. He was god of the waters, and wisdom, as Vul or Ram-Ana (Rimuna) was god of the air and higher intelligence. The Dolphin was revered as the "Savior-Fish" and was often depicted with the Tree of Knowledge growing from its back, an ark or coffer beneath, and in the embrace of a youth. The Hebrew legend of Jonah was adopted from this figure. The god Hercules, it will be remembered, was made the subject of a similar the three days' experience. The word "nun" also signifies a fish; and some even give the same definition to "Ninip," "Ninas," "Nineveh." The Gnostics of the early centuries of our era retained much of the old symbolism. Their notions were more or less incorporated into the earlier christianity, and we find without surprise that the fishdivinity as Lord of the Waters, and by metaphor prince of the ages, was made by Augustin of Hippo, the counterpart of Christ. "He is the Great Fish that lies in the midst of the waters." Hence the fish on the steeples of old meeting houses, and perhaps the rite of baptism. - A. Wilder (ibid., 354-5) Lost Ten Tribes. (Vol. 8, p. 370) The form of this question leaves the writer's meaning a little indefinite to me. The writers of the Bible do not seem even to have regarded the "Ten Tribes" as lost. It is rather singular that ten are enumerated. There were said to have been twelve, or dividing the "children of Joseph," thirteen. Of these, Levi, Judah, Benjamin, and Simeon, belonging in the southern monarchy, were not departed into Media. Again, Second Chron, xxx, 6, speaks of "a remnant that are escaped out of the hands of the kings of Assyria," of which were (xxx, 18) "a multitude of the people, even many of Ephraim and Manasseh, Issachar and Zebulon." So Second Kings XVII, 6, gives the last mention of the Assyrian conquest, while the books of Isaiah and Zephaniah seem to refer to them as continuing to exist. - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 424) The Logos. (Vol. 8, pp. 369, 404) Wearily will one search the Dialogues of Plato for the introductory words of the "Gospel of John." The doctrine of the proem of that Gospel is Gnostic rather than Platonic. In the "Apocalypse of Marcus" it reads that the Father, who is super-essential, uttered the Word which is like himself. This Word, or Logos, being next to Him, is the Manifest Type of the Invisible. The first verse of the Gospel is a similar sentiment. - A. Wilder (Miscellaneous Notes and Queries in History, Folk-Lore, Mathematics, Mysticism, Art, Science, Etc., S.C. and L.M. Gould, Manchester, N.H., 1892, Vol. 9, p. 25)

Calypso and Circe. (Vol. 9, p. 22 [1]) Mr. C.F. Keary considers Calypso and Circe as the same. "Each is very Death herself." They however personified different principles. Kalypso is the sky of Night that with the morn and stars illumines the cave in which she dwells. True the Ocean of the west contained the Islands of blessed Souls, and Kronos in the character of Rad-amanthos (Ra-t-Amerti) presided there. She was so named because she veiled (ekalupse) Odysseus on his return from Ilion. Kirke is an oriental genius, and Hermes is less bold with her than with Kalypso. The name signifies a circle in Greek; and we should probably regard her as the moon-goddess. She is the same as the Assyrian Istar and the Phoenician Astarte. - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 52) Socratic Eclenchus and Sorities. (Vol. 8, p. 322) The eclenchus was a mode of argument by scrutiny and questioning. The sorities was argument by a series of syllogisms in which the conclusions of one formed the premise of the next. - A. Wilder The Passions. (Vol. 8, 24) The word passion, suffering what is received or undergone. Though often associated with pain, it does not have that meaning necessarily, or at all times. That which is experience, acquiesced in, or cooperated with is suffering. There was a passion of Adonis and other hero-divinities. - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 54) Library First Mentioned in the Bible. (Vol. 9, p. 39) The word "library" is found in II Maccabees II, 12: "The same things also were reported in the writings and commentaries of Neemias; how he, founding a library, gathered together the acts of the kings, and the prophets, and of David, and the epistles of the kings concerning the holy gifts." It is said here that Neheiah made a library. I suppose, however, that the word meant only a collection of books; in other words, that he first collected the various works into a volume; that they were burned and dispersed by Antiochos Epiphanes, and again collected by the Asmoneans, with rabbinic additions, making what we call the "Old Testament." - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 73) Nemesis. (Vol. 9, p. 120) Nemesis or Retribution is described by Hesiod as the daughter of Night; but according to Pausanias, she was worshiped by the Rasusanians as the daughter of Okeanos - the Ancient One. She had a temple at Petrai. The Attic tragedians represented her as punishing those who are presumptuous from good fortune, as well as those guilty of crime. Modern writers use the term as personified retribution. A. Wilder, M.D. (ibid., p. 218) Casting Out the 9's. (Vol. 9, p. 136) "Daboll's Arithmetic," in which I first learned to "cipher," had this method of "proving" the work by "casting out the 9's." My teacher, Mr. G. Thomson Gridley, showed me how to do it. I never saw the method in any other work, and so must refer "Alpheus" to the quaint home-spun treatise of Nathan Daboll, who was, I believe, a Yankee of Connecticut. - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 218) Harpies. (Vol. 9, p. 136) Hesiod gives the Harpies a very respectable origin. Thaumas (wonder) wedded Elektra, daughter of deep-flowing Okeanos; she bore rapid Iris, and the fair-haired harpies Aello and Okypete. These names signify whirlwind and the

swift-flying. Evidently, therefore, the primitive concept of harpies was that of swift winds, such as mariners encounter at sea, personified. In the Odyssey, the harpies are mentioned by Telemachus as snatching away his father, and by Penelope as tempests that had snatched away the daughters of Pandarus, which is in keeping with the concept. The tragedians set them forth as monsters, abhorrent and execrable. They pursue Orestes; and rot the tables of Phineus. Virgil also represents them as half women, and half bird, rapacious and foul. They are evidently personifications of wanton rapacity, as well as of sudden death. - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 219) Sufic Quotations. (Vol. 10, p. 257) The quotation sounds Emersonian. Witness this from this transcendentalist: I am the owner of the sphere, Of the Seven Stars and the solar year, Of Caesar's hand and Plato's brain, Of Lord Christ's heart, and Shakespeare's strain. Here are three from Angelus Silesius: Dost thou alone prize Solomon as wisest of the wise? Thou also canst be Solomon, and all his wisdom thine. Man! would'st thou look on God, in heaven or while yet here, They heart must first of all become a mirror clear. Ne'er sees man in this life, the Light above all light, As when he yields him up to darkness and to night. Here is one from Jelaleddin: Didst thou ever pluck a rose from R and O and S? Names thou mayst know: go, seek the truth they name; Search not the brook, but heaven, to find the moon. Sufic Quotation. (Vol. 10, p. 257) [sic] The author desired adopted the name Angelus Silesius, living in the 17th century. His identity, however, is not established. Such writers, if known, were likely to be imprisoned, or put to death. He was a mystic after the pattern of a Sufi, and perhaps a "Transcendentalist." The sentiment prevalent in the verse is that the Internal and External, Spirit and Matter, Life and Form, are necessary each to the other, and therefore must be considered of like eternity and duration. Hence he also says: "I see in God both God and Man, He man and God in me; I quench his thirst, and he, in turn,

Helps my necessity." - A. Wilder (Miscellaneous Notes and Queries in History, Folk-Lore, Mathematics, Mysticism, Art, Science, Etc., S.C. and L.M. Gould, Manchester, N.H., 1892, Vol. 10, p. 324) Platonopolis. (Vol. 10, p. 256) Plotinos the Neo-Platonic philosopher obtained from the Roman Emperor Galienus the grant of a site in Campania where a city had been destroyed, that it might be restored, for such a fit residence for philosophers, and governed by the laws of Plato. The enterprise was begun, but the persons about the emperor interfered, and the city of Platonopolis was not permitted to exist. - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 324) "Prepare a Table for Fortune." (Vol. 10, p. 256) Probably the latter chapters of Isaiah were written in Babylon. Hence, the passage, "Prepare a table for Gad, and fill up mingled wine for Meni," relates to the observance of the festival of the divinities bearing those names. Both appear to be feminine; and with that impression Gad is doubtless the chochah, or planet Venus, the divinity of good fortune among the Northern Semites, and Meni among the Eastern and Southern. - A. Wilder (Miscellaneous Notes and Queries in History, Folk-Lore, Mathematics, Mysticism, Art, Science, Etc., S.C. and L.M. Gould, Manchester, N.H., 1893, Vol. 11, p. 13) Erchomenos. (Vol 11, p. 16) I suppose Erchomenos is a designation, rather than a name. It simply means "the Coming One," or "the one who had come." Thus, in Matthew XXI, 9, "Blessed is the One Coming in the name of the Lord." Again, Mark XI, 9-10, "Blessed, the One Coming in the name of the Lord; blessed, the Coming kingdom of our father David." In Luke XIX, 38, the sense varies: "Blessed (or all hail) the king who cometh in the name of the Lord." - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 55) Ho Areios Pagos. "The Martial Hill." (Vol. 11, p. 16) The terms for Areopagos are used interchangeably in the Greek classics, as the harmony of the sentence may require. Xenophon follows this practice. We are outgrowing the practice of nicknaming the Hellenic divinities with Latin designations; and so the person desiring to be strictly accurate can write any of these ways: Areopagos, the Areian Hill, the Hill of Ares. - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 55) Legend of Saint Christopher. (Vol. 11, p. 16) The legend of Saint Christopher, carrying Christ over the stream, is a later adaptation of "pagan" myth to Christian narrative. It is said that a man of titanic proportions conveyed a helpless person over a river, who proved to be Christ himself. So he was styled Christo-phoros, or Christ-bearer. His bones and relics were preserved in different churches. Folk-lore alludes to him with similar legends. Aristophanes informs us that the lark existed before the older gods, Zeus, Kronos, and the Titans. In plainer words the lark was the sun bearing a crest, crista, or halo of light; and in the course of time it became Christopher or light-bringer, the Lucifer or morning star, Omnia similia. Saint-lore and folk-lore go together. - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 55)

Ulysses - Odysseus. (Vol. 11, p. 16) How is the former word derived from the latter, asks "Logos." It is by no means certain that the name Ulysses was so derived. The earlier name was Uluxe, or Siculian Oulixes, and was written in classic Latin Ulixes. As the x or xi was read like s, the samech of the Semitic alphabets, it presently became transformed to s, or ss, making the Italian name as we now have it, Ulysses. The Italian dialects were as old as the Grecian, and probably older, and what is the same thing, more strictly Pelasgic. The Aeolic name Odysseus was a dialectic form of the other. If we had a vocabulary of the language antedating the Arabian and Italian dialects, we would doubtless find that the forms are all from one original source, and neither derived from the other. As a pure Greek word Odysseus would mean the indignant Zeus or Jove, which no one would insist. - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 68) "I Am Struggling to Liberate the Divinity Within Me." (Vol. 11, p. 91) I think Plotinos discoursed of the "liberating of the divinity (daimon) within him." The phrase, however, has been the theme for gross misconstruction. The Neo-Platonists regarded the alliance of noos or intellective principle Plato taught had it seat in the summit of the head, where phrenologists place the organ of Veneration. This noos Menander declares "is our daimon or divinity." It was regarded as emanating or extending from the Absolute Noos or Divine Mind, and returning to it when its earthly career was fully ended. This, however, was not effected simply by dying, but by that death to the sensuous and mundane life, which the philosophic life was regarded as accomplishing. The dramas in the mystic initiations, and afterward in the Theatre, figured this discipline and experience which emanicpated the spirit or noos from its bonds. - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 106) The Thamudites. (Vol. 11, p. 91) We find the mention of Ad and Thamud in E.W. Lane's version of the "Thousand and One Nights." The legend make Ad a Kushite who migrated from archaic Khusistan or Persia, and settled in eastern or southern Arabia. They were probably identical with the Rephain of the Bible, and archaic remains in Arabia are yet known as houses of Ad. The Thamudites were of cognate race and occupied Idumaea and Western Arabia. Lenormant considers them Canaanites, and there are also traditions that they lived or more probably worshiped in grottoes, had a wicked and immoral religion and were finally destroyed by Kodar al Ahmed. (Compare Genesis XVI.) Doubtless the whole legend is closely related to Sodom and Gomorrah, the cities of the plain. - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 106) Lost Sign of the Zodiac. (Vol. 11, p. 95) In regard to the "lost sign of the zodiac," probably Robert Brown's exposition is the best summary at hand. It was at a remote antiquity known as Tulku the Sacred Mound, and represented by the conical block there. The form of the abbreviation now called Libra (symbol) denoted that symbol. The sign or symbol probably lost its position as Babylon lost her existence, as one of the results of conquest. Libra, or the Balance, was introduced to take its place. - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 107) Crispus Attucks. (Vol. 11, p. 91) Crispus Attucks was the first man killed at the "Boston Massacre," of March 5, 1770. He was a colored man, and had made himself

marked as the leader of a conflict with a party of British soldiers at Murray's Barracks in Brattle Street. An hour later the quarrel was taken up anew in King street, near the Custom House; the crowd attacking a file of soldiers with snow-balls, oaths, and foul language. Henry Knox, afterwards Secretary of War, Samuel Gray, and others attempted to prevent a riot, when seven of the men one by one, discharged his musket with deadly aim. Attucks was leaning upon a large billet of wood, watching the affair, when a bullet hit him, killing him on the spot. Gray next fell; then Patrick Carr who was crossing the street; then James Caldwell, and finally Samuel Maverick, a boy of seventeen, who was running out to a fire a few streets away. The troops were speedily sent out of Boston, and the American Revolution postponed five years. - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 108) "Children of the Sun." (Vol. 11, p. 91) "Children of the Sun" is a phrase that has been employed at various times, and in different regions. The Yncas of Peru professed to be of solar descent and established a worship very analogous in rites and practices to solar cults in other countries. Samas the sun-god of Assyria was probably the tutelary of the Semitic peoples. Marduk, or Amar-Utuki the Akkado-Chaldean divinity, was a personification of the sun. The Rajputs of India are also called children of the sun, and they venerate Rama as the chief of the solar race in India. After the Aryan colonists became permanent in India, the sun-dynasty made its principal capital at Ayodhya (Oude), and some centuries later a second invasion established the Moon-race at Hastirapura, or Dehli. - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 108) First American Novel. (Vol 11, p. 91) I think that the first work regarded as an American Novel, was "The Algerine Captive," published nearly a century ago. - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 108) Almanac and Calendar. (Vol. 11, p. 91) Calendar has relation to the calling of the month; and the noting of days in an account book for the collecting of interest and rents. Almanack is apparently Arabic and was used in connection with the casting of horoscopes, etc. In common usage there is not now much difference in the sense of the words. - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 109) Bavaria and Samaria. (Vol. 11, p. 92) The analogy between the names Bavaria and Samaria is only a seeming one. The former forms its adjective and other derivatives after the style of the Latin Language; the latter by the Greek and Semitic. - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 109) Sibyls and Sirens. (Vol. 11, p. 92) The Sybles and Sirens were beings of different natures and offices. We find the Sibyls first named by Plato in the Phaedrus, as employing prophetic inspiration and predicting future events. The term is from the Doric Sio-bolla, for Theo Boule, and means the publisher of the divine caused. At first but one, the Cumaean, seems to have been recognized. In regard to Sirens, I am disposed to favor Javob Bryant's explanation that they were priestesses or magdalens at the temples, who charmed and attracted strangers by their songs and fascinations to come to their temples, there to be slain as sacrifices. The Hebrew term Siruth means "women who sing." - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 109)

The Creation Legend. (Vol. 11, p. 95) The inquiry made respecting my worthy correspondent's quotation (Robert Brown, Jr., of Barton-on-Humber, England), I would suggest that the question be sent to him directly. He would be sure to answer it. By reference to "The Chaldean Account of Genesis," translated from the Assyrian Tablets by the late George Smith, page 64, the quotation will be found: "He arranged the year according to the bounds that he defined," - meaning the twelve signs of the zodiac. The book can be obtained from Scribner, New York. - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 109) Popes Named Alexander. (Vol. 11, p. 91) There were six Pope Alexanders in the roll. The last of the number, Roderigo Borgia atached such a fragrance to the name that no pontiff seems to have cared to adopt it as his titular designation. - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 109) Law of Least Effort. (Vol. 11, p. 95) The phrase, "law of least effort," is applied by Mr. Brown to the principle of abbreviation, by which part of a word, or idea-symbol, is written to express the whole; or as a numerical figure is used in preference to writing out the whole amount in words. The law is simply that of doing as little as possible to accomplish a desired purpose, avoiding any superfluous waste of energy. - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 110) Psychology, Mesmerism, Hypnotism, etc. (Vol. 11, p. 92) As words are used, or rather misused, psychology is the science of alienism; but a bastard verb "psychologize" has been coined to express an occult psychic influence akin to mesmerizing. In court speech, psychology is the science of the soul and its qualities; mesmerism is the art of inducing trance, sleep, and cessation of pain, promulgated by Anton Mesmer; animal magnetism denotes the same art; hypnotism was invented by Braid and is applied inaccurately to the art or condition, on purpose to evade giving credit where it is due, and to make the art "scientific" or orthodox, this last term should not be used. - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 110) Monosyllabic Languages. (Vol. 11, p. 178) It is supposed that every archaic language consisted of monosyllables only. This seems to be true of the groups called Turanian, to which the Chinese belongs. The Akkadian, which is akin to the Chinese, the Etrutian and Skythic, were chiefly monosyllabic. I doubt the theory, however, for the Sanskrit, Avestic, Semitic, and Egyptian are abundantly monosyllabic. - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 256) Gypsies. (Vol. 12, p. 44) The name "gypsy" is from Egypt, and there are many documents extant in which their sovereign is styled "King of Lower Egypt." They are also from India and retain Sanskrit names and Hindu customs. Thus they term the Deity "devil," as from the Sanskrit deva, a divine being. "Caliban" in the Nut or primitive gypsy dialect, signifies a blackamoor, conjurer, or a necromancer. - A. Wilder (Miscellaneous Notes and Queries in History, Folk-Lore, Mathematics, Mysticism, Art, Science, Etc., S.C. and L.M. Gould, Manchester, N.H., 1894, Vol. 12. p. 115)

New Caesarea. (Vol. 12, p. 8) New Jersey was so named in courtesy of Sir George Carteret, its early proprietor, who lived in the Norman island of Jersey. This last name is a corruption of the roman name Caesarea, and hence in documents written in Latin, the name of the colony was written, "Nova Caesarea." In like manner, New York is written "Nova Eboracum." - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 115) "Book of the Angel." (Vol. 12, p. 47) Malachi signifies an angel, or messenger. In one of the apocryphal books (II Esdras I, 40), the writers of the Old Testament are enumerated, the last of them being also defined as "an angel of the Lord." The passage in Malachi 3, I, will bear the rendering, "Behold, I will send Malachi." - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 115) Scholiast and Sciolist. (Vol. 12, p. 76) A scholiast is an annotator, one who prepares notes and explanations to make the meaning of an author more intelligible to readers. A sciolist is one who has but a superficial knowledge of a subject. The term seems to have been invented by Arnobius. - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 168) "Conscience Seared with a Hot Iron." (Vol. 12, p. 76) The phrase "having their conscience seared with a hot iron" (I Timothy IV, 2), is a metaphor. It is not, however, a correct translation. The original text makes no mention whatever of a hot iron, except it be implied. Dr. Robert Young translates the language literally: "Giving heed to seducing spirits and teachings of demons, in hypocrisy, speaking lies, being seared in their own conscience." (ibid.) Quotation from the Odyssey. (Vol. 12, p. 76) The quotations: "It is an impious thing over men that are slain to utter the vaunt of pride," appears to have been spoken by Odysseus (Ulysses) to the nurse Euryklea. A more literal rendering would be: "It is not a sacred thing to boast over the slain." (ibid.) Longimanus. (Vol. 12, p. 75) Artaxerxes, son of Xerxes, the king of Persia, bore the title of Dirag-dest, Makro-kheir, or Longimanus. Plutarch says that his right arm was longer than his left; but Malchom in his "History of Persia," considers the name to mean simply "long-armed." He was the king mentioned in the Book of Nehemiah (II, I). - A. Wilder (ibid.) Evil - Merodach. (Vol. 12, p. 144) Great uncertainty hangs over the name Evil. It is spelled in the Hebrew text with the aleph, vau, and lamed. It is probably Skythic or Akaddian. It would be no great stretch of imagination to regard the aleph as a mere prefix, and the vau as a dialectic substitute for belt. In this case the name will be the same as Bel; and so the two will mean Merodach the Lord. This theory is somewhat far-fetched, yet we find its counterpart in the name of Zir Banit the consort of Bel-Merodach. She is called in II Kings (vxii, 30) Succoth-Benoth; Suka being her name in Akkad, and prefixed to the Semetic term Benoth or Benit (Venus), so as to mean Suka the Mother. The term BelMerodach is rendered Merodach the Lord. Inman makes the name Evil-Medorach mean the Lord of the air, apparently identifying Evil with Iva or Yava. - A. Wilder (ibid. p. 197)

Bombast. (Vol. 12, p. 153) The philogical or etymological evidence that derives bombast from the name of Paracelsus, Bombastes, is not very strong. Bombax was an ancient ejaculation, expressive of astonishment and doubtless the term came from that. A. Wilder (ibid.) Canker and Cancer. (Vol 12, p. 144) The word rendered "canker" in II Timothy (II, 17) is gaggraina, gangrene or sphacelus; whereas a cancer is karkinos, or "eating ulcer shaped like a crab." - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 198) Columbia and Olombia. (Vol. 12, p. 113) The change of u to o in words of one language transferred to another is very common. It has been pleaded that the two letters were sounded alike. Thus we find that words and names in Latin ending in us and um became o in the Romanesque dialects. I surmise that the last letter in such cases was not sounded, and was finally dropped, the u then being thus exchanged for o. Even Hebrew and Phoenician words, when written in Roman letters, often substitute o for the vau. The name Ashtaroth has a vau in the last syllable. Probably Dr. Von Swartwout, in writing Olombia, had in view the South American name Columbia. - A. Wilder (ibid.) Genuine Theosophy. I cannot speak for others, but think that the thirteenth chapter of the Pauline epistle to the (first) Corinthians is genuine theosophy. So, too, is "the Lord's Prayer" (Matt. vi, 8-15). - A. Wilder (ibid.) Apotheosis and Pantheon. (Vol. 12, p. 113) Apotheosis is a term used by Strabo and Cicero is the sense of deification. The Macedonian kings from Alexander down were styled theos, and the emperors were Divi. Not to worship their statues was atheism, a term that principally signified what treason now does - not a rejecting of gods, but a failure to do proper homage to the god or tutelary of the commonwealth. The Pantheion is set forth in a work of Aristotle as a place or precinct sacred to all the gods. Such was the Pantheon at Rome. The term is also sometimes applied to the image of one divinity which was adored with the significant emblems of other gods. - A. Wilder (ibid.) Ecclesiastes and Ecclesiasticus. The title Ecclesiastes (Hebrew Koheleth or Kaalat) denotes a man that calls the people together or who discourses to an assembly; Ecclesiasticus signifies one who belongs to an assembly, perhaps the chief of a congregation. The former term is a noun, the latter an adjective. - A. Wilder (ibid.) Neo-Platonism. (Vol. 12, p. 215) Any attempt to expand the doctrines of NeoPlatonism is certain to be questioned. It was an Eclectic philosophy, of which Ammonios Sakkas and Plotinos were the first expounders. Porphyry, however, wrote so voluminously upon it as to win for his followers the designation of Porphyrians. The term new was applied to it as distinguishing it from the older Platonic schools - the Academeia, the Middle Academeia, and the New Academeia. The later Platonists, many of them, endeavored to promulgate a Harmony of the doctrines of Plato and Aristotle; while many went farther and sought to identify them with the Oriental theosophies. Porphyry accordingly describes the

Mithraic rites as sympathizing with an esoteric philosophy; and Iamblichos in like manner represents the Egyptian Serapis-worship. The system substantially set forth One God sole, infinite, supreme, and unnameable - manifest as the Creator, a Demiurgos of the Universe; subordinate to whom divinities, tutelary demons, and psychal beings, mediate between God and Man. The various theologies and mythologies were interpreted as allegoric (Galations IV, 24). It was thus expressed: From the Divine All proceeded Divine Wisdom; from Wisdom proceeded the Creator; and from the Creator were subordinate spiritual beings - the earth and its inhabitants being the last. The first is immanent in the second, the second in the third, and so on through the entire series. Plotinos taught that divinity was essentially one; that the cosmic universe or nature is not God, nor part of God, but nevertheless has existence from his mind, derives from him its life, and is incapable of being separated from it. Thus it is the doctrine of emanation and evolution perpetually at one. "The end of the Rites," says Plutarch, "was the coming to know the one God, the Lord of all, who can be discovered only by the soul. The theosophy which they illustrated had two meanings: the one sacred and symbolic, the other popular and literal. The figures of animals which abounded in the temples, and it has been supposed were worshiped, were only so many hieroglyphics to represent the divine qualities." The system contemplated the highest spiritual development. The Buddhistic tendency to asceticism was prevalent; and such faculties as presension, second-sight, and miraculous energies were recognized and attainable and often possessed. Identity or oneness with divinity was the chief good; otherwise, the fall from the celestial into the genesis or mundane sphere of life, was regarded as the calamitous condition from which all must emerge. The doctrine of human brotherhood and perfectability underlay the whole system. The later faiths have drawn liberally from it to enrich their own theologies. - A. Wilder (ibid., pp. 229-30) Number of Enochs in the Bible. (Vol. 12, p. 215) There are two personalities in the Bible bearing the name of Enoch. One purports to be the son of Cain, who "built a city" and named it after himself. The other is placed in the lineage of Seth. The name, like the other terms, is various defined. If it is Hebrew, it may mean initiated, instructed, or set apart to a specific function. In Gen. XIV, 14, the forces of Abram are styled kenichi, or trained. - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 230) Kenosis. (Vol. 12, p. 214) Kenosis means an emptying of a receptacle; a putting away of high dignity. What is called "Christian faith" would be imperilled, except for the postulate that Jesus when becoming of no reputation laid aside his supernal position as "very God." - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 231) Rhapsododes and Rhapsodists. (Vol. 12, p. 215) The rhapsodoi and rhapsodists were undoubtedly the same - reciters of the poems of Homer, and afterwards of other authors. The Greek Lexicons make no distinction. - A. Wilder (ibid.) "Many are Called, But Few Chosen." (Vol. 12, p. 215) The passage in the Matthean Gospel, "Many are called, but few chosen," can hardly be regarded as quoted from II Edras; the later being a book of later date. It may more plausibly be taken from the Phaido of Plato: "There are many narthes-bearers, but few inspired." - A. Wilder (ibid.)

Justin Martyr. (Vol. 12, p. 214) Probably Justin was called martyr, as being a valiant witness for Christianity. All accounts of his violent death are apocryphal. - A. Wilder (ibid.) A Homoeoteleuton. (Vol. 12, p. 214) A homoeoteleuton is the ending of two or more clauses or verses in rhyme in the same time. - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 233) Hermeneutics. (Vol. 12, p. 76) The term hermeneutics was largely used by the late Professor Moses Stuart, of Andover, Mass. I think he was the first to adopt it as a theological term. It is from the Greek Hermes being the herald and interpreter of the gods. Plato uses the term hermeneutes and hermeneutike in The Statesman, as signifying an interpreter and the art of interpreting. (ibid.) The Soul the Mistress of Life. Psellus the Younger (1020-1105) credits to Zoroaster the following lines. Can any reader state where these and the context can be found in his writings? The soul, being a bright fire by the power of the Father, Remains immortal and is mistress of life. (N. and Q., Vol. 12, p. 290) - Searcher It is hardly probably that "Searcher" can be answered satisfactorily respecting his quotation from the Logia Zoroastrou. There were many Zoroasters; and the Chaldean Oracles given by Plethon and Psellus need not therefore be regarded as being by the great Zarathrustra himself. Nevertheless, the learned Parsi, of Bombay, Jamsetji Medhora seems to consider them as genuine and has reproduced them accordingly. Pico del Mirandola asserted to Ficino the restorer of philosophic learning, that he had the Chaldaic originals in his possession. Ficino succeeded in finding the manuscripts after his death, but in a condition so worn as to be utterly illegible. The Oracles as we have them are simply maxims - aphorisms probably from a treatise, and often are not complete in sense. Outside of Plethon, Psellus, Franciscus, Patricius, and other collections, it is doubtless impossible to find anything. The text, if any there was, has been lost or destroyed. At the risk of appearing officious I will translate the passage anew. Soul, a glowing fire subsisting by the Power of the Father, Deathless abides, and of Life is absolute mistress; And has the many full bosoms of the cosmic universe, For of Mind she is the image, while that which is created is something corporeal. - A. Wilder (Miscellaneous Notes and Queries in History, Folk-Lore, Mathematics, Mysticism, Art, Science, Etc., S.C. and L.M Gould, Manchester, N.H., Vol. 13, 1895, p. 2) Abrasax, or Abraxas. How is the word Abrasax or Abraxas explained as being a representation of 365 heavens? (N. and Q., Vol. 12, p. 290; 8, pp. 416-17.) The term Abrasax or Abraxas is said to be Coptic, and to signify "the Adorable Name" or "Word." The letters composing it in Greek have the numerical value of 365. The

same thing is true of the names Chreistos and Meithras. Omit the e or epsilon in each of these words and they would express 360 which was an archaic sacred number. Basilides, the eminent Egyptian Gnostic, appears to have first used the term Abrasax; and Jerome declares that he applied it to the Almighty God, whom the heathen call Mithras and the Iberians of Spain Balsamus and Barbelus (Lord of heaven, sire of Bel). He promulgated an elaborate doctrine of emanation in the following order: 1. Abrasax; 2. Mind, or Nous, the Superior Intelligence; 3. The Word; 4. Providence; 5. Energy and Wisdom; 6. Virtues, Principalities, and Powers; 7. The Angels. "By these angels 365 heavens were created. One of these was the God of the Jews, also called Idda-Baoth, the son of Chaotic Darkness, the ruler of Saturn, the outermost planet of the Cosmos." Augustine says that "Basilides pretended that the number of the heavens is 365, the number of the days in the year." These aeons or emanations are thus included in Abrasax or the Great First Cause, and thus he is the pleroma, and fullness and complete of All. A. Wilder (ibid., p. 4) Jesus the Christ a Secret. (Vol. 12, p. 290) If Jesus professed to be "the Christ," he would be exposed to the penalty of treason; if the designation is more correctly Chrestos, he would incur the double penalty of treason and sacrilege for making himself like Apollo, a demigod. - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 4) Surname and Sirname. Why do we spell our hereditary name - surname, when we spell it sir when use in address as Dear Sir, or as Sir Isaac Newton? (N. and Q., Vol. 12, p. 290) - Llewellyn Many of our modes of spellings are dictated by the attrition of usage. But sur in the word surname is not the same as sir. The latter is the contraction of senior, while surname is from the Norman-French term surnom. - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 5) These three translations are by Alexander Wilder, M.D., Newark, N. J. He says: It is but a simple assertion that the plurality of divinities in the Grecian pantheon are comprised in One Godhead. There are several fragments extant, differing in expression, but offering the same sentiment. A prominent one is in the Book of Deuteronomy: "Yava our Godhead - he is One." 1. The Greek names as rendered by Grote, and others: Pluto, Persephone, Demeter, Kypris, Erotes, Tritonis, Nereus, Tethys, the dark haired One; And Hermes, Hephaestos the renowned, Pan, Zeus, and Here, Artemis, and the far-shooting Apollo, are one sole God. 2. The names changed for Latin: Pluto and Persephone, Ceres, Venus, Cupid, Pallas, Nereus, Tethys, dark-haired Neptune, Mercury, Vulcan, the noble Pan, Jove and Juno, Diana and Apollo shooting from afar, are but one God.

3. A paraphrase: Pluto and Persephone rulers of the underworld, Demeter worshiped in the mystic orgies; Kyprian Aphrodite and Eros with his bow; Athena the wise; Nereus the father of the rivers; Tethys mother of the ocean, dark-haired Poseidon; Hermes the herald of the gods, Hephaestos lord of fire; Illustrious Pan, immortal Zeus and Hera; Artemis and Apollo acting from afar; And these are but the One Sole Divine. (ibid., pp. 36-7) General Ethan Allen Hitchcock. Mr. Editor. I read with surprise the statement on page 167 of the current volume, that Gen. E.A. Hitchcock asked that my mantle might fall on him. I would have sooner supposed that the terms should be reversed. General H. was old enough to be my father, and during our friendship, from 1859 till his death, I had supposed I was learning from him. Certainly I am indebted to him for numerous thoughts and suggestions by which I have greatly profited. He was a diligent student of mystic philosophy, conversant with Plato, Philo, the Alexandrians, Spinosa, Boehme, the Germans, and later speculative writers. It was a favorite utterance of his that in order to learn an author's meaning well one should write about it. He taught that Alchemy did not mean the physical transmutation of metals, but the regeneration of human nature into the Divine. This was the true hermetic philosophy of which Emanuel Swedenborg as well as Benedict Spinosa were expounders. He held of course that the Gospels, the alchemic, Rosicrucian and other writings were profoundly symbolic. Christ, he taught, was the personification of philosophy of the Essenes. He collected a large number of theosophic, archaeologic, philosophic, thaumaturgic, alchemic, and mystic works, at a large expense. At the outbreak of the war in 1861 he perceived the ending of his mystic life and placed his books with Joseph Sabin of New York to be sold. By some connivance, common with venders of second-hand books, they were remorselessly "butchered," going for a song where their worth was not duly appreciated. Besides his works, Remarks upon Alchymists, 1855; Remarks upon Alchemy and the Alchemists, 1857; Swedenborg a Hermetic Philosopher, 1858; he also published the following: Christ the Spirit, two volumes, (four editions 1861 to 1874); Spenser's poem Colin Clouts Come Againe Explained, 1865; Remarks on the Sonnets of Shakespeare, with the Sonnets, showing them to have an esoteric meaning, 1866; Notes on the Vita Nuova and minor poems of Dante, 1866; Red Book of Appin, 1866; Goose girl Going to the Well, 1859. It was his belief that the classic poets wrote in symbolic language, and he contemplated an exposition of "Wilhelm Meister." When D.A. Wasson's papers on that work appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, I surmised at first that General H. was the author. He wrote a brochure tracing the similarity of the doctrines of Spinosa and Swedenborg, but his views of the latter are hardly acceptable to pronounced "Newchurchmen." He regarded the various tales in our folk lore as mystic, and he loved to delineate their spiritual or esoteric meaning.

Yet, familiar as I was with him, I never knew till after his death that he was the grandson of the conqueror of Ticonderoga, or I should have had a world of questions to put respecting the old veteran. We always discourse on the peculiar topics which interested us both. It is my aim to know the best I can of every person, rather than his faults. Gen. Hitchcock was a great admirer of Abraham Lincoln. In a visit to me just before the battle at Gettysburg and the murderous riot of 1863, in New York, he declared that it did appear as if God had specially raised up Mr. Lincoln for the presidency at that period. Everything looked dark just then, and his confidence in Mr. Lincoln, sublime as it was, seemed to me almost doting. But he knew better than I, and the event showed him right. He lived years in advance of his contemporaries. He was not appreciated except by a few. Gen. N.B. Buford of Detroit was perhaps his principal disciple. He published his works at his own expense, and gave the most of them away. In short, while he and I were closely and cordially in rapport, I think the intellectual seniority belonged to him par excellence. - A. Wilder (ibid., pp. 253-4) Kabbalistic Names of William B. Greene. (Vol. 13, p. 236) I do not pretend to solve them, but perhaps what I say may help dig them out. Tharthac, or Tartak (II Kings xvii, 31), was a divinity of Ivah, Aivah, or Ava. The term seems to mean either the Royal Bull, or the Great Circle (the sky), Ana, the most High. Nembroud is the same as Nimrod, god of the Namri, a Kurdik or Tartar people of Mr. Zagros. Doubtless Nimrod, the some of Khus (Genesis x) or Cush, was the eponymous founder of Babe-el. The region beyond ancient Babylonia is called Khusi-stan, the land of Khus. In it are the Zagros Mountains. I surmise therefore that we have a clue to the origin of the god Bacchus or Dionysos. His Asyrian word was Dian-nisi, lord or judge of men. The designation Zagreus comes really from Zagros. The name Nimrod signifies spotted, and we know that a leopard-skin, or spotted fawn-skin was worn by the priests of Bacchus and Osiris. Nimrod, son of Khus, or Cush (Genesis x), is thus Bacchus from Mt. Zagros in Khusi-stan. Acham is beyond me. It may mean the Fire-king; and it may mean Beloved (Adonis). Nahema, I judge to be the same as Naama, said to have been a daughter of Lamech (Genesis iv) and mother of king Rehoboam (I Kings xvi, 21). Naama was also the reputed consort of Samael and mother of demons. Nabam, or nab-am would mean mother of prophets. More likely, however, it is from bam, the "high place," and it would mean the divinity of the hill, or high place. - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 296-7) Dual Arithmetic. (Vol 14, p. 84) In reply to "Nelson" we will state: "When eight positions to the right and eight to the left of the signs * ^, counting from left to right in both cases, are occupied by ciphers or other digits, the sign * being placed before the eight ascending digits and ^ after the eight descending; yet with respect to range, the dual number is said to be one of eight digits, although sixteen positions, and other positions between the ^ and * may be occupied. If one of the signs is omitted, the positions attached to the other are supposed to be occupied by cipher." (Miscellaneous Notes and Queries in History, Folk-Lore, Mathematics, Mysticism, Art, Science, Etc., S.C. and L.M. Gould, Manchester, N.H., Vol. 14, 1896, p. 108)

"Son of a Hundred Years" (Vol. 14, p. 120) The phrase, "Son of a hundred years," is not omitted from our common English version of Genesis xi, 10, but translated into a European idiomatic form. The older languages were far less copious in vocabulary than the modern dialects of Europe, and so words were necessarily used in innumerable ways to express meanings. To translate literally would often make them unintelligible to many readers. The terms ben and bath (son and daughter) were much used in a sense which we consider figurative. In Exodus xii, 17, a yearling lamb is described in the Hebrew text as the "son of a year," and in Genesis xvi, 17, Sarah is termed "a daughter of ninety years." An arrow is called "a son of the quiver," and sparks of fire "sons of the coal." In Ezekiel, the phrase "son of man" is employed to denote the man addressed. The Hebrew phrase bath kol, or daughter of the voice was used to designate an inner meaning to words after the manner set forth by Swedenborg. - A Wilder (ibid., p. 188) Chrestos. (Vol. 14, p. 87) Godfrey Higgins, in the Second Volume of his "Anacalypsis," confidently states that the term "Christ" in the New Testament was originally written Chrestos, and was afterward changed to Chreistos and later to Christos. With that proposition I see excellent reason for concurring. The statement that the disciples were termed Chrestiani is made by one or more early Christian writers. Once in the First Epistle ascribed to Peter the designation remains in the Greek text: "If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is Chrestos" (ii, 3). The Gnostics made use of the same term. A device upon the tombs in the Catacombs of Rome consisted of an anchor somewhat resembling the ansate cross at the superior part, with the two fishes on the sides of the shaft, and bearing the inscription "IHCOUC XPECTOC," Iesous Chrestos. Apollo was also styled Chrestos. This term Chrestos is fuller of meaning than any translation that can be offered. I prefer the rendering of "good." It also means auspicious, oracular, prophetic, useful, true, worthy. The nobles of a country were Chrestoi. The Gnostics of the schools of Basilides were addicted to magical application of names. Thus they termed the Sun-god Abrasax or Abraxas (the Adorable Name) because the letters of which the word consists possessed the numeral value of 365, the number or days in the solar year. The name Mithras, the Persian, divinity by inserting an epsilon before the iota, has the same number. The early identifying of the three personifications as denoting the same concept, has been recognized by scholars. Even St. Augustine acknowledge that the priests of Mithras used to say that he was the same as the Christian divinity. The assertion of Boeckh, that in the earlier centuries only the terms Chrestos and Christos were used, is most probably correct. - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 189) Evangelists in the New Testament. (Vol. 14, p. 120) Your correspondent, "Lenore," inquires, how many evangelists are mentioned in the New Testament? The plural term "evangelists" is found only once, namely, Epistle to the Ephesians iv, 2. In the Second Epistle to Timothy iv, 5, is the charge: "Do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of they ministry" (diakonia). Whether this means that Timothy was technically an "evangelist," the reader must judge. In the sixth chapter of Acts of the Apostles the account is given of the appointment of seven men to "serve tables" in the daily ministration of food to the multitude of disciples then living in community. One of them is named subsequently (xxi, 8) as "Philip, the evangelist, which was one of the seven." But nothing is said to indicate

that the others had that distinction, except, perhaps, we suppose Stephen. No other individual except Philip is distinctly termed an evangelist, although the word means one who promulgates an evangel. - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 191) EI Engraved on the Temple of Apollo. (Vol. 14, p. 96) The dissertation upon the word, "EI," over the gate of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, is to be found in "Plutarch's Morals." The term has several means as being as many distinct words. I would translate it as the second person singular of the ver eimi - "Thou art." Along with it was inscribed the maxim "Know Thyself." It seems easy to perceive that the two combine the substance of all philosophy. - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 192) An Adept Becomes; He is not Born. (Vol. 14, p. 3) At the risk of my reputation in occult lore, I will give no exoteric meaning of the phrase, "an adept becomes; he is not born." It is the converse of the latin, Poeta nascitur, non fit. "We are never born gifted, expert or skilled, but by discipline and persistence we may become so. - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 192) Conservation of Forces. (Vol. 14, p. 10.) Conservation of forces, or more properly conservation of energy is defined in the Standard dictionary as "the doctrine that the sum total of the energy of the universe neither diminishes nor decreases, though it may assume different forms successively." The principle is stated a little more at length by Professor Clerk Maxwell: "The total energy of any body or system of bodies is a quantity which can neither be increased nor diminished by any mutual action of those bodies, though it may be transposed into any one of the forms of which energy is susceptible." - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 192) Pronunciation of Ogygia. (Vol. 14, p. 96) Our dictionaries indicate O-jidj-ee as the proper pronunciation of Ogygia. It is usage, although the Greek gamma is never to be sounded like j. Governor. Governor is from the Norman-French word gouverneur. Bysshe, the second name of the poet Shelley is pronounced Bish. Indo-European races are generally considered as including the Brahmans and Rajputs of India, the Persians, and the inhabitants of Europe with their cognate relations in the other hemisphere, but excepting the Lapps and some of the Tartars of Russia. Ethiopian and Egyptians. In regard to the relative antiquity of the Ethiopians and Egyptians, every ethnographer seems to take his choice. Nobody knows. - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 192) "Heap Coals of Fire on His Head." (Vol. 14, p. 184) It is perhaps unnecessary to interpret the text (Romans xii, 20) strictly by the import of Proverbs xxv, 22, except the sense shall imperatively require it. A literal rendering from the Hebrew text is as follows: "For thou art putting coals on his head (rasu) and the Lord recompenseth thee." The Greek is a little different: "For doing this, thou heapest coals of fire upon his head, and the Lord repayeth good to thee." The passage in the Epistle is a literal transcript. Augustine of Hippo considers the heaping of coals to denote the producing of deep pangs of repentance. Theodoret, however, held that it implied that when a man foremeant revenge for himself,

God eventually imposed a severer penalty. Doubtless, Theodoret and Chrysostom are right in their exegesis. It is not necessary to hold the quoted passage strictly to the meaning which it had when first used. The context in Romans xii is in keeping and favors our conclusions. - A. Wilder (ibid., p. 259) ---------------------

APPENDIX

Alexander Wilder, M.D., F.A.S. His Life and Work by Robert A. Gunn, M.D. "Not a true life really dies; not a true thought, word, or deed is wasted; not a true being ceases to be. Each lives in the future as it lives in the present, in ever widening circles, and ever multiplying force." - Frederick Harrison A bright light has gone out in our midst. Today we mourn for one who has been our friend and adviser in many a trying hour. Dr. Alexander Wilder has penetrated the mystery of death. By his death the philosophical and scientific worlds have lost one of their greatest lights, the liberal medical profession its foremost champion and most valiant defender, and the societies to which he belonged one of their strongest pillars. During the past two years those who knew Dr. Wilder noticed a gradual failing of his physical strength, and about a year ago he suffered a slight paralytic stroke. He soon rallied from this, however, and continued his writing several hours a day, as had been his custom. In spite of his failing strength his mental powers never lagged, and he kept steadily at his work to the end. Dr. Wilder was in every sense of the term a self-made man, as can be seen from a review of his life and work. What I here relate of his ancestry and early life I glean from "The Book of the Wilders," by Rev. Moses Wilder. The name Wilder is German, and numerous individuals bearing it are found in the Austrian dominions, as well as among German immigrants. A branch of the family settled in Massachusetts in 1638, the descendants of which were widely distributed. "They are generally men of integrity," says their biographer, "and reliable in all their business relations. An unconquerable tenacity of purpose, connected with a strong confidence in their own estimate of the correctness of their conclusions, has done much to keep them out of the arena of political strife. When called upon to fill places of responsibility, few, indeed, have failed to secure public confidence." They are also characterized by a peculiar family resemblance, which has almost uniformly followed them through every generation. The shape of the middle part of the forehead exhibits a remarkable similarity in every one related by blood. They are mostly of medium stature, thick-set, agile, often of great bodily strength, long-lived, and retaining their faculties to the last. The subject of this sketch, however, as well as other members of his immediate family, constitutes somewhat of an

exception to this description; being more than six feet high, of an apparently slender figure, with studious habits, literary tastes, and an inaptitude for athletic exercises. These are an inheritance from the mother, who was a descendant from the Ward and Williams families of Watertown and Marlborough, in whose lineage were several individuals of note in literature and public life. The immediate ancestors of Dr. Wilder were residents of Lancaster and Petersham, Mass.; his father emigrating to St. Albans, Vt., in 1808, and thence to Western New York in 1813. He reared an old-fashioned family of ten children. Of these, Alexander, the eighth, was born May 13, 1823. He early exhibited an aptitude for books and knowledge of all kinds; learning to read at three, and beginning the study of English grammar at seven, history at eight, natural philosophy at ten, botany, chemistry, Latin and surveying at thirteen. At fifteen he taught school. Those were the days of common schools, when boys attended a few months in winter, and worked on the farm the residue of the year, and a large day's work counted for more than the best scholarship. It was regarded in that region as effeminate, lazy, or a sign of weakly habit of body to go much to school; and academic instruction was, for the greater part, very hard to get. A better idea of Dr. Wilder's early life, his character and struggles may be had from a biographical sketch, written by himself, the manuscript of which is in my possession, and from which I abstract the following: "I was early introduced to books. I remember being taken to a neighborhood Sunday school where our neighbor, Col. S W. Osgood, served as superintendent. He distributed little books to the other children present, but gave me a card on which were printed the alphabet and simple lessons in spelling. I kept hold of the card tenaciously, and with some help from brothers and sisters, learned the letters and how to sound them. Having no further use for the card, I then destroyed it. I suppose that phrenologists will consider that to be the legitimate operation of the organ which they call 'Destructiveness.' "My schooling was such as could be afforded in a rural neighborhood. Our school district was known as No. 4 - also as the 'Tilton Hill District.' During my boyhood the Verona Spring came into notice in that district, and a hotel was built there for visitors. "I was four and a half years old when I was first sent to school, and a Mr. Franklin Loomis was the teacher. It was the practice to employ a young man as teacher for three or four months in the winter, for about twelve dollars a month, and a young woman for a similar period in summer, for a dollar a week. "The teachers boarded around with the parents. They were seldom on familiar terms with the pupils, and the discipline in the schoolroom was generally harsh and severe. "I was early considered a proficient pupil, and received more flattery for it than was beneficial or deserved. I early became proficient at spelling, and at six years of age won a New Testament as a prize for being oftenest at the head of my class. The school was ranged in four or five classes, according to attainments, and the one who stood at the head at night took his place at the foot the next morning. "There was a similar facility in committing to memory. I learned Willet's Geography at seven till I knew it by heart, and the teacher, Mr. Morris B. Brewer, a cousin of the Justice of the Supreme Court, a very capable young man, demanded that I must take some other book; so I was placed on Lindley Murray's English Grammar.

"Unfortunately, books were few and dear, while parents with families ranging from four to ten or twelve, did not feel able to purchase more than was imperative. A reading book for each child, a writing book, a school arithmetic, a grammar, a geography, constituted a pupil's outfit. The books that I had were those that were used by an older sister and brother in turn. Thus at seven I had begun geography and English grammar; and at nine I undertook arithmetic. I recollect that I mastered two textbooks on grammar, four on geography and three on arithmetic before I was eleven years old. Guided by the judgment of an older brother, I then studied Blair's Rhetoric, and managed to purchase for myself an abridged edition of Tytler's Universal History. These two books have been invaluable in aiding my later career. "I am more indebted to my mother than my father in respect to study. Her family had strong literary tastes, and she read eagerly such books as fell in her way. But my father wished his sons to become farmers like himself, and checked their ambitions in other directions. We were made to do our full share of work all through boyhood. I was taken from school in summer at seven years old for this purpose, and it became distasteful to me. Yet in later years, when I came to understand the matter and the requirements, farm work was not distasteful to me. I do not know but that with other matters more agreeable than they proved, I would have lived and died a tiller of the ground. Even now I have a strong passion for gardening. "But I was passionately desirous to know. I was disposed to ferret out the reason for things. I could not believe a thing right or wrong because somebody said it was. Besides, I was an eager reader, and in this I was restricted all through my early life. It was no specific hardship of mine, for everybody that I knew was in as bad or worse condition. Books were not to be had easily, and the newspaper came only once a week and was meager at that. But I think that few desired books as much as I did. That 'Tytler's History,' the first book that I ever bought, had done its work in introducing me into the wider field of human endeavor, and through what I learned from its pages, the other books that I read were made more intelligible and of greater worth. "Perhaps, after all, our family was favored beyond others around. Certainly neither brother nor sister was a commonplace character. They would have made more of their lives had they the opportunity. In school they were superior to others of the same age; but they were not permitted to expect or think anything possible beyond. "Perhaps a certain family trait had full influence. I never knew a Wilder ready to take the lead in any undertaking. They made excellent lieutenants, and when leadership devolved upon them, they were generally equal to it. "I often thought that my father had a dislike for the professions. He used often to decry professional men as lazy, indisposed to work, etc., and seemed to be determined to make his sons all farmers. Yet my second brother had been disabled while an infant by a young girl lifting him by the arm, and so dislocating his shoulder. There were few surgeons in those days, and though physicians boasted loudly of being a learned body, and invoked special legislation to protect them from competitors, few of them were very expert, and the result was that my brother's dislocation was never reduced. Later, in boyhood, he fell from a ladder and broke his ankles. The family doctor was called but never discovered the trouble, or was able to deal with it, and the result was an additional infirmity. He must therefore be something else than a farmer. A neighbor advised that he study law; but this was contrary to family prejudice, and he became a teacher.

"Indirectly this aided me. It was found that several of my brothers could teach in the district schools; so four of us and one sister became teachers, as did also others of our schoolmates. For myself, this was not a very successful employment. The work of instruction was to my liking and I had rare success in communicating what I knew, but the governing was beyond me. Every parent passed judgment on methods, and the children behaved in school according as they were managed at home. Every district was in factions, and it required more tact than a boy in his teens possessed, to steer a clear course among the breakers. I was between fifteen and sixteen, and in those respects succeeded but indifferently. "It was never properly explained to me, but I think my parents had come to the conclusion that I must be educated. This was acceptable to my mother, but not to my father. As there were but three professions, and I had not undergone 'conversion' I could not become a clergyman. The family were bitterly opposed to lawyers, but had an almost servile belief in physicians, so at fourteen I was allowed to attend school over spring and autumn, and enabled to begin with studying botany and chemistry. Unfortunately, I had no person about me competent to point out how to direct my studies to advantage. Yet as I was proficient, it may be that this was beneficial in ulterior results; but I was made to take a path which I never contemplated. "A teacher, Mr. Charles H. Snow, the next session, induced me to begin the study of Latin, lending me his books. This has proved a service for which I have never been sufficiently grateful to him. But there came a break which disconcerted all plans so far as I knew. "My parents were deeply tinctured with the spirit of the New England Puritan. I never knew what it was to have familiar or confidential intercourses with them. That they should command and I must obey was about all I thought or knew. I had not completed fifteen years of age when their minister and his advisers decided on 'Protracted Meetings' to recruit the ranks of the church. "We had been having a disagreeable occurrence in the school, in which, being the youngest and most artless of the coterie, I had been made the most conspicuous. It had, however, been wisely adjusted and studies resumed, when this religious interruption occurred. It was most distasteful to me. I had formed a set of opinions for myself, and desired not to be bothered. But our parents believed that opportunities for religious impression should not be neglected, or themselves made accountable for the future of their children after death. Conversion, in their conception, would both straighten out their own mistakes, and be of everlasting benefit to us. So, against my vehement protests, I was taken from school, and perforce made to attend the meetings. It took days to overcome my stubbornness, but the endeavor was successful. I became a Presbyterian of the New School, one brother, more impressionable than I, sharing in the experience. The first result of this was an intermeddling with my previous expectations. I still expected to make medicine my pursuit for life, yet the new conditions led to a purpose to turn me to the clerical vocation. I was still reluctant but the pleading of my brother prevailed on me. For two years I continued at Latin and Greek, fitting for college, when another disturbing element was introduced into the family, which proved lasting in results for good and evil. An older brother, of a domineering temper, had persuaded the one to whom I was most attached, to leave the Congregational for the Baptist church. He next himself changed his belief, and succeeded in unsettling us.

"So, by eighteen I was adrift, out of the Church, and seeking knowledge in other directions. It was a period of fearful risk, but I had the mens conscia recti, and I must believe that the care of Providence would preserve me from the worst of perils. Having been kept in abnormal subjection all my younger years, I knew not how to act wisely or properly for myself. I had first of all to acquire a sense of freedom both in thought and action. I was, with all my experience, at twenty-one, more simple and artless than most lads at fifteen. I excelled all my equals in book-learning, but was far behind in the savoir faire. So for years I kept on feeling my way, blundering, and only extracting myself with much anguish of mind. My worst errors were the results of blindly following the advice of others older than myself. "In 1840 I first heard of Mesmerism. I read such literature about it as I could find, and had opportunity to witness anesthesia produced by manipulation, and also read about clairvoyance resulting from it. I was still under the belief of an emotional piety, and actually formed a religions alliance with John B. Foot and others of the same character; but a year was sufficient to show him to me as weak as others, and unreliable as a leader. "What little I learned and observed in Mesmerism opened the fact to perception that there is a spiritual region to which we really belong, and with which under certain conditions, we may have perceptible intercourse. It may be heaven or hell, but that depends solely on our own state of mind. There are no rewards or punishments, except as they are incident with ourselves. It took me long to learn this. The Calvanistic notion held me for years, and indeed was about the last I was able to discard. In the field of mind, spirituality and the higher knowing, I made haste very slowly. I sought information from every one, and conscientiously examined it, unwilling to accept anything blindly. I exercised the reasoning faculty, but sought to be open to the superior sense. "When at seventeen I withdrew from religious associations, I gave up the purpose of going to college, and decided to follow farm work. I worked at home two years, then went to Vermont, where I learned typesetting, and had a foretaste of things I had not imagined. I saw the religious boss exhibited in his hatefulness. It was an experience the peculiarities of slaves, by baseness, treachery and unmanly servility. My own health succumbed to it, and I was fortunately enabled to get back to my father's house. My brother David was now the head there, and I was enabled to attain rest and somewhat of normality. "But I must shift for myself. Going to Orange, Mass., I was employed for a season in woodcraft. My work was to cut the dead trees into firewood. One day in April I was felling a tree some fifty or more feet high. The limbs had all decayed and fallen away. Being an awkward woodman I cut it so out of right, that it merely caught on a tree near by, so I set about to do my work over again. As I was striking I felt a voice. It seemed to reach my head at the top and pass to the epigastrium with all the force of peremptory command: 'Step back!' I obeyed, going some eight steps. That very instant a limb, about six feet long and several inches in diameter, fell from the top of the tree. It fell along my footsteps, and with such force as to bury itself in the soft earth. If I had failed but a step it would have hit and crushed me. "I do not suppose that I am much of a visionary. I have certainly sought to base my notions and experiences upon a foundation of stable fact. Nevertheless, I have had some of these peculiar impressions, which I could not explain by any usual method, and also

experiences that may be interpreted from an external or interior point of view, as the person is disposed. Of course they are more interesting to me than to others. "On one of these occasions I was walking in a lane in a country town, when I felt about me the peculiar atmosphere of an individual whom I knew was unfriendly, as well as domineering and aggressive. Next I felt the words: 'I will hold you fast, and crush you, no matter what you attempt.' I was not overawed, but resolutely told him to get out of the way. He did attack me immediately afterward, estranging friends and otherwise assailing me. But I never swerved from the purposes to do and to go as my own convictions led me. The man ran his career, drew many inside his sphere of influence, and then encountered revolt. I was told that he left the country immediately after the death of one of his circle, from his cruelty, and that he died of a broken heart. "From 1844 to 1851 I drifted from one place and employment to another part in Massachusetts and part at my father's in New York. My religious experiences consisted in becoming disentangled from the various beliefs and opinions which for a few years had held me fast, and in the endeavor to learn more of the world of reality. Prompted by a lady who had been one of my teachers in boyhood, I procured and read with interest the philosophical and theological works of Emanuel Swedenborg. "In so doing I was aided by Prof. George Bush, who had recently embraced the 'Heavenly Doctrines' and was publishing a periodical to commend them to popular attention. "To this day I esteem the philosophic doctrines of Swedenborg as the most perfect that have been promulgated in modern times. * I cannot, however, subscribe to many of the constructions which have been placed upon them, and I have never been able to comprehend intelligently the principle upon which he interpreted the books of Genesis, Exodus and the Apocalypse. ------------* The last date referred to in this autobiographical account of Wilder's used by Gunn is 1857, so I have to assume that Wilder's opinions expressed in it are those of that date, when he was only 34. This is before he began his serious studies in Neo-Platonism, Religion, Philosophy and ancient history, and also long before he met Blavatsky and became involved in the Theosophical Society. Wilder later wrote dozens of articles centered on Neo-Platonism, yet, as far as I am aware, not a single one on Swedenborg which speaks for itself in his mature viewpoints. Gunn was not a metaphysician, and his rapport with Wilder was on medical issues, and in not mentioning the very early date of this autobiographical account, including other statements below (such as "God" as a "personality", in which he supposedly quotes Wilder), was possibly glad to have something by Wilder to assuage his own more conventional religious viewpoint. - m.r.j., digital editor ---------------

"I have since become a student of the Platonic Dialogues, with which Swedenborg seems in many respects to have been in rapport. But with all their profundity and fulness they strengthen rather than weaken my regard for Emanuel Swedenborg. Despite all that may be said captiously or sneeringly of his peculiar statements and methods, he is most emphatically the philosopher of common sense.

"In 1849 I finally set out on a definite career. I left Verona and made my home in Syracuse. It was incumbent on me, now more than ever to make sure of a livelihood; yet in many respects I was almost helpless. I was a farmer's son, and knew little of remunerative labor beyond farm work. I had been precluded from procuring the knowledge of a profession, except as I had taught myself. My tastes were those of a student. I was eager to know the cause and reason of everything which related to duty and life. Every book that came in my way I eagerly read, except such as related to mechanic skill. In this way I had made myself quite proficient in common medical knowledge; but I had early become opposed to common medical treatment. While in Massachusetts in 1844, I spent a season in reading medicine with Dr. George H. Lee, a cousin; and supplemented it later by reading the works of Dr. Wooster Beach, the founder of the Eclectic School of medicine, and other publications of the Reformed Practice; and while at home I continued my medical studies for two years longer. Medical Colleges were rare, except those of the dominant school, and these would graduate nobody except with the assurance that he would adhere to the approved practice. Physicians at this time were often illiterate; physiology was almost an unknown science; materia medica limited to brief dimensions; and practice consisted of bleeding, the administration of calomel, antimony, and little else. This was accounted 'Regular' and denominated scientific. To have known as much as Humboldt, and yet to refuse this method, consigned one hopelessly to the reproach and stigma of ignorant, conceited and visionary. Stamina, energy and moral conviction were required to oppose these views. "I became a partisan of the water-cure and Botanic practice, and had taken part in forming a medical society in the county of Oneida, and served as its secretary for two years. I attended a medical meeting in Syracuse, and when the meeting was over, I learned that the Syracuse Medical College was about to begin a session. Only two of the instructors, however, were on the ground, and I was asked to deliver a lecture. Accordingly I discoursed upon the physiology of the cells, which had just been promulgated. It was determined by the managers that I must remain and lecture. "I was now embarked to take full responsibility for myself. Yet I was but a novice. I had no training for common business; I was artless and credulous, and had to meet those who would take advantage of me, and attempt to use me for their own ends. "For three sessions I lectured on Physiology, Chemistry and Anatomy, and hearing lectures in the other branches. I also engaged in regular practice, but not with the desired success. Patients were numerous and I was gratifyingly successful; but it was more than I could do to collect fees to pay my own expenses. Lecturing in the college was very good discipline, but it afforded me little money or reputation. I was on the unpopular side. I discarded blood-letting and poisonous agents as medicines, and had associated with a school in which the standard of mental attainments, just dealing, and gentlemanly courtesy were not high, and it was irksome to me to incur debt. "At this time there arose a friend to find for me a way out. Lyman Stevens was prominent as a 'New-Churchman,' and lived as he believed. He induced a friend in the firm that published the Syracuse Daily Star to employ me at setting type, and this was work that I liked. I was not a rapid compositor, but earned enough to meet my expenses. A few weeks later I was promoted to the place of assistant editor, by Mr. S. Corning Judd, who had become the proprietor. I thus employed one year, and then entered upon a similar

course on the Syracuse Daily Journal; but the owners were changed and I was dismissed at the end of the year. "This was in 1854, and the Legislature of New York had just created the State Department of Public Instruction, and elected Victor M. Rice superintendent. We were relatives and I had rendered him a service, so he gave me the appointment of clerk in the new Department, and showed me many kindnesses. He bore with me where I was at fault, and promoted me as he found me fit. "The teachers of the public and high schools were organized in a State Association, and for some years issued a monthly journal of their own. To my annoyance, I was chosen editor. Though in many respects I was very well adapted for a teacher, I had little occasion to love the calling of a schoolmaster; but it was Mr. Rice's wish and I accepted. A year sufficed as the enterprise was not remunerative. "In 1856 I was relieved of this charge, and for a while was afloat. I held two 'Teachers' Institutes,' as they were called. These were assemblies of teachers of the public schools for a district territory, for the purpose of some further training and exercise, to fit them for a better performance of their duties. They usually lasted two weeks. I held one in Whiteside county, Illinois, and one in Suffolk county, New York. I then engaged for some months as assistant editor of the College Review, and visited Indiana and Illinois. I spent January and part of February at Springfield, to aid the teachers in procuring of incorporation of a Normal School. I prepared the bill and Mr. Simeon Wright advocated it with members of the Legislature. He succeeded in enlisting the leader of the majority in the House of Representatives, the Hon. John A. Logan. There was a large opposition. In the senate the Hon. Norman B. Judd became its champion, and before I left Illinois it became a law. It has the almost solitary reputation of being the most complete measure of the kind in the United States. The Normal University at Bloomington was the institution thus established. "In 1857 I became a resident of Brooklyn, and taught one year in the school of the Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen. The following year I was introduced to the Hon. John Bigelow, who gave me a place on the staff of the Evening Post; and in that capacity I was the Albany correspondent during the annual sessions of the Legislature. I held this position for thirteen years, and was thus enabled to become acquainted with many of our public men, both of New York and other states. Among these I may enumerate the Hon. Wm. A. Wheeler, Lucius Robinson, Fred. A. Conklin and his more distinguished brother Senator Roscoe Conklin, Governors Horatio Seymour, Myron H. Clark, Reuben E. Penton and John T. Hoffman. Among those of other states were Charles Sumner, Henry Wilson, John A. Andrew, Schuyler Colfax and Marcus Ward and others. "At the suggestion of Hon. John Winthrop Chanler of New York, I became clerk of the committee on Ways and Means of the Assembly, and served in that capacity several sessions." As we read the foregoing account of Dr. Wilder's struggles we cannot but wonder that he had the courage and tenacity of purpose to surmount every obstacle that stood in the way of his search for knowledge. Yet in writing of himself his innate modesty prevented him from recording much that his friends and the public should know. During his connection with the Evening Post, as its Legislative correspondent, his extensive acquaintance with public men, and his intimate knowledge of the political history of the country, gave him a unique position and influence in public matters. He became

popularly known as "The Political Encyclopedia," and the leaders of both political parties would go to him for information on disputed questions. Of the men with whom he was confidentially associated many were elevated to high political positions. He first suggested the Hon. Lucius Robinson for Comptroller of the State of New York in 1861, Chauncey M. Depew for Secretary of State in 1863, John T. Hoffman for Mayor of New York City in 1865, Roscoe Conklin for United States Senator in 1866, and William A. Wheeler for President of the New York Constitutional Convention in 1867. Through his careful analysis of the votes cast for State officers, he gained the reputation of being an expert at calculations, and his opinion was often sought in political matters. In 1860, at the request of Hon. John Bigelow, he compiled a list of counties in New York, and estimated their average political majorities. They footed up 47,700 majority for Abraham Lincoln, for President. When the returns were all in the actual majority was 47,700. The next year Hon. Lucius Robinson was the Union Candidate for Comptroller. Soon after his nomination he asked Dr. Wilder's judgment as to the probable result. "Your majority cannot be accurately predicted," replied the doctor, "but will be some indefinite figure over 100,000." The official returns gave the majority as 109,447. In 1866, Governor Fenton was the Republican candidate for re-election. Dr. Wilder waited upon him in September, with a tabulated computation of estimated majorities, promising him not lees than 13,000. The Democrats nominated John T. Hoffman, then at the height of deserved popularity, and were sanguine of success. The Hon. A. Oakey Hall met Dr. Wilder on a street-car the afternoon of election day, and exclaimed, "We have got you this time." The newspapers of next morning were filled with telegraphic dispatches, which seemed to indicate a Democratic victory. Taking his seat in the office of the Evening Post, Dr. Wilder began to analyze the returns, and in an hour's time he had completed his task. Soon after, the bulletin board of the Post announced, "Fenton's majority not less than 9,000," while all the other papers were conceding Hoffman's election. The official canvass gave Fenton 13,700, which was practically Dr. Wilder's estimate made in September. In 1868 he predicted a Democratic victory, which was verified at the polls by the election of John T. Hoffman as Governor of New York. These are only a few of the many instances which go to show the careful study and accurate analysis on which he based his judgment, on all questions on which he expressed an opinion. Ex-mayor William F. Havemeyer, Horace Greeley, William Moller and others desired to establish an Eclectic Medical College in New York City, and appealed to Dr. Wilder for aid in securing a charter. He prepared the bill for the incorporation of the Eclectic Medical College of the City of New York in 1865, and secured its passage in spite of the most bitter opposition of the Old School profession. No other man but Dr. Wilder could have carried the measure through. He knew personally almost every member of the Legislature, and Governor Penton was his personal friend. He answered his opponents' abuse by sound reasons why the bill should pass; and they accepted his statements as true, because they knew him to be a man of integrity whose veracity was above question. The same year he procured the passage of a bill for the incorporation of the New York State Eclectic Medical Society, and aided the Homeopaths in securing charters for their College and State Society. He also secured the incorporation of the National Eclectic Medical Association in 1872.

In 1867 he succeeded ex-Mayor Havemeyer as president of the College, and held the position till 1877, when he resigned. He was President of the New York State Medical Society in 1869 and 1870, and its secretary in 1871, and in that capacity he edited Vol. V. of the Transactions of the Society. While President of the Society he appointed a committee to investigate the charges regarding the sale of medical diplomas. A full report of the committee was made in 1872, and can be found in Vol. VI of the Transactions, pages 113-114. This was the first decisive step that had been taken to wipe out the evil of diploma selling, and it ultimately led to the revocation of the charters of all the colleges shown to be engaged in the nefarious traffic. Though I had long known Dr. Wilder by reputation, my personal acquaintance with him did not begin till the fall of 1871, when we met at the second annual meeting of the National Eclectic Medical Association. I had at that time been appointed to the chair of Anatomy and Operative Surgery in the New York Eclectic Medical College, and, he being the President, our relations were close and cordial for a time. Just previous to this, through the urgent persuasions of a number of his influential Republican friends, he had accepted the nomination for Alderman-at-large, on the Reform ticket, in opposition to the nefarious Tweed Ring. At the same time he severed his connection with the Evening Post, after a service of thirteen years, and he was thus free to attend to his new duties if elected. Though not a voter in New York State at that time, and a staunch Democrat by convictions, I took some part in the campaign, and spoke for Dr. Wilder almost nightly till election day. I was surprised to see how well he was known, and how enthusiastically he was received by the voters, whenever he appeared on the platform. He ran far ahead of his ticket, and was elected by over 26,000 majority. His total vote was 80,394, a figure never before reached by any Republican candidate in New York City. He took office on January 1, 1872, but the position was far from congenial to him. At that time the Board of Aldermen had little to do with the functions of government; but they were frequently required to pay political assessments, and constantly importuned for appointments for clerks, laborers and other positions in the various departments of the city government. In such cases he would make no promises, but would invariably inform the applicant that there were 100 applications for every possible vacancy. He often said to me, "The principal service required of the office, was unquestioning obedience to the men who had assumed the supreme dictatorship." Thus he soon learned that the reform administration had its bosses, just the same as the deposed Ring. He, therefore, confined his efforts to the quiet discharge of whatever duties devolved upon him, served the needy as best he was able, and then, at the end of his term, quietly withdrew from all political association. Dr. Anna T. Nivison, two brothers and a sister, all physicians, had long been Dr. Wilder's intimate friends, and he ever found a congenial atmosphere in their home. They had recently taken up their residence in Roseville, a suburb of Newark, N. J. Here the doctor took up his home and remained there till his death. And all who loved "our dear old doctor" most feel grateful to Dr. Nivison for the untiring devotion and care she gave him during the last years of his life - and for many years in fact, for he was so absorbed in his work that he rarely thought of himself or his own comforts. I have known him often, after

a hard day's work, not to remember if he had eaten anything since an early breakfast, and it usually developed that he had fasted the entire day. The Eclectic Medical College, though started under the most favorable auspices, never prospered as it should, because it was dominated by a one-man power. Such men as ex-Mayor Havemeyer, Horace Greeley, founder of the N. Y. Tribune, William Moller, the wealthy sugar refiner, and other men of prominence, were interested in it, and would have endowed it handsomely, had Dr. Newton given up control and placed its management in the hands of competent and responsible business men. This he would not do, so these men resigned as trustees, and in 1867 Dr. Wilder was persuaded to accept the presidency. His time was so occupied, with his literary and other work, that he gave little attention to the inner workings of the college, but relied on the glowing reports of Dr. Newton regarding its status and progress. During the sessions of 1871-72 and 1872-73 the Faculty of the College was second to none, and all were anxious to build up the reputation and financial standing of the institution. It was found, however, that this could not be done without a radical change in the management. To accomplish this, five members of the Faculty and several of the trustees proposed to raise a fund for a new building before the next session, provided Dr. Newton would relinquish the business management. This he at first refused to do, till the protesting members of the faculty and trustees sent in their resignations. He finally agreed to the terms proposed and a date was fixed in July for a meeting to consummate the plans. Dr. Newton, however, broke faith and called a meeting at an earlier date, when those interested in the change were away attending the meeting of the National Association. He represented to Dr. Wilder that this meeting was necessary at that time to fill vacancies that had occurred. He then read the resignations, and moved their acceptance, on the ground that those resigning were working against the interests of the college. The resignations were accepted and some of the vacancies were filled, then and there, with inexperienced and incompetent men. In their extremity they turned to Dr.Wilder, and after several appeals for his help to save the college, he, with great reluctance, accepted the chair of Physiology. To my personal knowledge he earnestly endeavored to place the institution on a successful financial basis, to raise its professional standard, and to promote its reputation. He soon found, however, that his efforts were wasted. The one-man power was still the stumbling block, and with a Board of Trustees always ready to do his bidding, he had his own way in everything. Dr. Wilder finally found out that everything had been misrepresented to him, and the reasons why the college had not prospered, so, after four years of protests and appeals he severed his connection with the institution. On this subject he writes as follows: "Despite my protest and repeated refusals, I was made to accept a professorship in the Eclectic Medical College of the City of New York. It was necessary, it was declared to me, as the college was in a straight and otherwise could not go on. Various promises and assurances were made, and the inducement held out of being early enabled to retire. Nevertheless, I remained till 1877, when it became unequivocally sure that no faith would be observed, and I was personally flouted, as others had been before me. I had tried to serve all faithfully, but there seemed to be a general disregard of every common honesty. I determined to leave, and to my surprise the door was set open for me to do so promptly." During those four years Dr. Wilder's relations with the writer were pleasant but not intimate. As soon as he was free, however, he called on me and told me of his failure to

rescue the college from the one-man power and place it where it should be in public estimation. At Dr. Wilder's suggestion, a meeting was called early to January, 1878, with the view of organizing a new medical college. It was well attended, and it was unanimously agreed that a new Eclectic college should be organized. Dr. Wilder was made secretary, and was intrusted with drawing up a charter and formulating a plan of organization. The trustees named in the charter were, Drs. B. J. Stow, D. E. Smith and H. E. Firth, of Brooklyn; Drs. Alexander Wilder and Mark Nivison of Newark, N. J., and Dr. R. A. Gunn and Thomas A. Granger of New York City.* ---------* All of these are now dead but the writer. ---------Hon. Lucius Robinson, Dr. Wilder's warm personal friend, was Governor, so the doctor took the proposed charter to Albany to consult him. He was surprised to learn that the Governor had, a few days before, vetoed a bill for the incorporation of a medical college in Buffalo, on the ground that it was special legislation, and therefore, unconstitutional. He advised him to see Dr. S. B. Woolworth, Secretary of the State Board of Regents, who was also a friend of Dr. Wilder. He said the Regents had power to charter a medical college, but had never done so, and did not care to assume the responsibility. He advised the incorporation under the general law of 1848, as amended by the law of 1870, providing for the incorporation of colleges and universities. He said that the Syracuse University, including its medical department, and the American Veterinary College of New York City, were so incorporated. Shortly before this the Attorney General of the State gave a written opinion on the question of the incorporation of the American Veterinary College, in which he says: "A college thus incorporated is chartered by the state, and is subject to the general provisions of laws relating to colleges." He further said, "the authority to confer degrees is the same in every college duly incorporated, without reference to the manner of incorporation." Upon the strength of this assurance, the United States Medical College was organized May 28, 1878, and formally opened its doors on October 13 of the same year. A bitter warfare was at once started against the college by the Allopathic school, and by unscrupulous rivals in our own ranks, and every possible obstacle was placed in our way. Dr. Wilder was elected secretary of the college and Prof. of Physiology and Psychological Science, and held these positions till the college was forced to close its doors through legal technicalities. He always declared that the decisions against the college were contrary to facts and against the law, and obtained through misrepresentation and undue and illegal influences. Dr. Wilder's lectures were always well attended, and frequently the benches were filled by students of other colleges, who invariably declared that they heard no such instructive lectures in their own colleges. He was always a favorite of the students and they sought his advice on all occasions. Their common name for him was "The Walking Encyclopedia," for they never broached him on any subject without getting the desired information on the moment.

The closing of the college was a great grief to him, as it was to all of us, and after that he retired from all public work, except the secretaryship of the National Eclectic Association, to which he was elected in 1876. On the re-organization of this Association in 1870 the writer was elected secretary, and filled the position for four years, editing the first four volumes of its Transactions. Declining a re-election, Dr. A. L. Clark, of Chicago, was elected my successor, but he failed to attend the next meeting at Washington, D. C., or to prepare the annual volume of Transactions. As usual in an extremity, Dr. Wilder was appealed to, as the only person to save the Association from falling to pieces. He finally agreed to serve as secretary, and he soon put new life into the organization. He held the position for nineteen years, but declined a re-election in 1895. He edited nineteen volumes of the Transactions and every paper published was carefully edited before going to the printer, so that in addition to their practical value, they make of themselves a library of choice medical literature. For all these years he was the guiding spirit of the Association. He was always on terms of close sympathy and the warmest friendship with all the presidents of the organization and was universally liked and admired by all the members. What is thus far recounted would seem to be a vast work for any one man, yet it is but a small part of what he has accomplished. Science and literature had always been his passion, and throughout his life he had devoted much of his time to scientific and philosophical studies and writings, while his entire time was devoted to these pursuits during the last thirteen years. Aside from his knowledge of Latin and Greek, which he acquired in his younger days, he mastered by his own efforts, German, French, Hebrew and Sanskrit, and was able to read and make translations from them all. As associate editor of the Medical Tribune, he contributed many valuable articles to its pages, among the most important of which are: Crying for the Lancet and the Bloodbowl; The Human Tree; Medical Plots Against Citizens; Philosophy of Medical Science; Specifics for Small-pox; Subtension or the Fourth Dimension of Matter; A Chapter on Psychological Science; A Study of the Nervous System; The Missing Science; Psychophysiological Science; Early Brain and Physical Culture; Magnetism and Archaic Medicine; Disposing of the Dead; Health the Supreme Law; Heredity; Higher Medical Education; Insanity - Its Causes and Treatment; Functions of the Cerebellum; The Transmutation of Matter; Psychology in Medicine; Relations of Food to Health; Sanitary Science; Animals - Their Language and Faculties, and The Classifications of the Cerebral Organs. He was also a frequent contributor to the American Medical Journal of St. Louis; The California Medical Journal, The Eclectic Medical Journal, of Cincinnati; and The Chicago Medical Times. I am indebted to Mr. Leander Edmund Whipple, editor of The Metaphysical Magazine, of New York City, for a list of the titles of the articles contributed to that magazine by Dr. Wilder, which I herewith append: The Antecedent Life; The Birth and Being of Things - Creation and Evolution; Intuition and Divination; Micro-organisms in Disease; The Ethics of Work; Psychology as a Science; The Rosicrucian Brotherhood; Paracelsus as a Physician; The Practical Value of Philosophy; The Ganglionic Nervous System - Its Relation to Psychic and Physiological Life; The Fallacy of Vaccination; Pertinent Truths; A Chapter on the English Language; The Cerebellum, or Subjective Brain; Life Eternal; The Aesculapian Art of Healing; The Double; Taking Cold, and

Kindred Ills; Swine and Sacred Rites; The Metaphysics of Matter; Psychiatry and Psychal Force; Mind and Cerebration; Universalism; Entheasm; The Philosophy of the Zoroasters; The Imagination; The Serpent as a Symbol; Philosophy in China; Philosophy Essential to Progress; Genesis of the Koran; Jainism - its History and Doctrines; WorldMending; Hebrew Scriptures Interpreted Astrologically; Astrology a Department of Medical Study; Philosophic Morality; Mysterious Metals; The Undying Soul; Why they Crowned Jesus with Thorns; The Phases of Love; Psychic Therapy; The Very Old Egypt; Popular Superstitions; Memory; Creation a Genesis; Evil; Knowing and Foreknowing; The Chambers of Imagery; How Disease is Disseminated; The Fire of the Altar; Love a Moving from Human to Divine; Zoroaster; The Later Platonists; Macbeth - Lawful King of Scotland; Manifold Man; Animistic Medicine; The Mysteries; A Reading of Uncanonical Scripture; The English Language and Orthography; Some Marvels of Mind; The Drama of Christendom; and The City of Mind. Beginning with April, 1907, and continuing till the time of his death, Dr. Wilder contributed an article every month to The Word, a monthly magazine, edited by H. W. Percival, and devoted to the promulgation of Theosophic Philosophy. I am indebted to Mr. Percival for a list of the articles which have appeared in his magazine, one of which, "The First of the Gospels," was published since the doctor's death. The following is a partial list of the titles of these articles, many of which are translations from Plato: Plato, His Life and Times; Plato on Education; The Unforgotten Knowledge; The Former Eternity; Love in Ancient Greece and Platonic Love; The Supreme above Gods; Concerning Friendship; Origin of the Universe and Man; Concerning Pleasure; The Key of the Universe; The Problem of Providence and Evil; The Truly Real; A series of twelve articles from Plato's Man a City, Republic, embracing books I to XII inclusive; The Enigma of Alchemy; Genesis of Judaism; How "Isis Unveiled" was written; Madam Blavataky in India; Evolution of the New Testament; The Apostle Paul; and many others. Mr. Percival writes: "In addition to Dr. Wilder's articles which have appeared in The Word, I have the manuscripts of a translation of the "Eleusinian Mysteries, by Iamblichus," "Dogma and Ritual of Magic," by Eliphas Levy, translated by General Abner Doubleday, with annotations and notes by Dr. Wilder; and also several hundred pages of manuscript of the doctor's Lecture on "Physiology, The Nervous System, and Psychology." Besides all this work, he has written and published numerous monographs on speculative philosophy, science, literary criticism, political economy, education and oriental exploration. Among these may be mentioned the following: Neo-Platonism and Alchemy; Intermarriage of Kindred; Plea for the Collegiate Education of Women; Medical Education; Protest Against Vaccination; The Human Soul, Its Origin and Destiny; Paul and Plato; Prophetic Intuition, or the Daemon of Socrates. He also edited and annotated the following publications: Ancient Symbol Worship; Taylor's Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries; R. P. Knight's Symbolism of Ancient Art and Mythology; Hyde Clarke and C. Staniland Wake on Serpent and Siva Worship; and Madam Blavatsky's Isis Unveiled. This last named book was not only edited, but compiled and rewritten from old manuscripts that had been accumulating for years.* When completed and published it made two large volumes of over a thousand pages each. -------------

* This is not accurate. Wilder was used by Bouton, the publisher, to edit and check the manuscript for accuracy. He was of great aid but was not the compiler from "old manuscripts" of the book. Blavatsky wrote and had final say on the editing Isis until it was published. See Wilder's "How 'Isis Unveiled' was Written" in Vol. I of this series. - m.r.j., digital editor -------------He worked for many years over a manuscript on Ancient Symbolism, Mystic and Serpent Worship. An octavo volume of about 600 pages was set up and put in plates some time ago, but his work was interrupted at the time, and so far as I know the manuscript for the second volume was never completed. It is to be hoped, however, that some one will be found to complete the work from his voluminous notes, and thus save to the world the results of his deep research and untiring labor. His last great work, The History of Medicine, published in 1904,* is a large volume of 946 pages, and is the most complete work of the kind ever written. It begins with the earliest historic period, includes all nations and races, and gives an extended account of the various sects of physicians and new Schools of medicine, down to and including Christian Science, Mental Healing and Osteopathy. It is in fact an epitomized account of the evolution of the healing art from the days of Archaic medicine to the present time. Every physician, every scientist and every man desirous of obtaining a liberal education, should read and study this book. -------------* Originally published in 1901 by New England Eclectic Publishing Co., New Sharon, Maine. - digital ed. -------------Dr. Wilder was a member and Vice-President of the American Akademe, a philosophical association, which met every summer, for many years, in different places, for discussion and interchange of views on philosophic subjects. He was also President of the School of Philosophy, member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, member of the Medico-Legal Society, and of many other medical, philosophic, reformatory, and scientific societies. He was also an Honorary member of the Anthropological Society of Liverpool, England. Vast as the work here recorded is, it does not embrace one-half of what he really did. He was constantly asked to prepare speeches, lectures, essays and other literary work, for physicians, politicians, public men and others, and he never could say "no." In fact he would take greater pains in writing for others than for himself; and he always delighted in any new theme that required study and careful research. He always worked for the love of it, and never thought of remuneration for what he did. For this reason he was never adequately paid for any of his work, even when others got the credit and large pecuniary rewards for what he did for them. One instance of this kind will illustrate how he was generally treated. A prominent public man, of great wealth, had long professed great friendship for the doctor, and frequently invited him to dinner. Before the evening was over, however, he would want some little (?) manuscript revised, or some article written, and when complete the reward

would be another dinner. On one occasion he wanted an article on a special subject, which at that time was commanding public attention. He had been requested to prepare such an article for one of the leading monthly Reviews. Then came to Dr. Wilder another invitation to dinner, and later a request to prepare this article, on the plea that he was too busy to prepare it himself. As a matter of fact the man knew nothing of the subject he was requested to write upon. He, however, knew he had a "Political Encyclopedia" that he could rely on for all necessary information, that was not accessible to the public. Dr. Wilder prepared the article and made four visits to the would-be author so as to have everything to his liking. It was finally pronounced satisfactory, and the doctor had four dinners, but the generous millionaire handed the doctor some bills in leaving, which proved to be the munificent sum of $7.00. When published it occupied twenty pages, for which the supposed author received $10.00 a page. No offer was made to give Dr. Wilder any part of this, and yet he was frequently invited to dinner afterward, and had I not protested, I believe the doctor would have gone on doing the same thing to the end. I knew scores of similar cases, where he got only thanks for much laborious work, and sometimes not even that. There was one event of Dr. Wilder's life on which he was extremely sensitive, and of which he never spoke. During his most prosperous days, while connected with the Evening Post, he had accumulated a considerable sum of money. At this time he married a cousin, and bought a handsome home on West Thirty-fourth street, New York City. The union did not prove congenial, though his wife had great admiration for his intellect. He was a close student and constant worker, while she was fond of society and wanted constant excitement. Other interests and pleasures soon occupied her time and she became discontented and irritable. One day, while in a passion, she said to him, "I wish you would go away and never come back." "Do you mean it?" he asked. "Yes," she replied, "I mean every word of it, and you know I do." "Very well," he replied, and left the house. He went to Albany that day, and on his return he wrote her a note, saying if she meant what she said at their last interview to please send his clothes, and he would send for his books in a few days. They never met again, but when he sent for his books he also sent her a transfer of the house and all it contained. I feel that this is a delicate matter to refer to, and yet this sketch would not be complete without it, as it gives some insight to the character of the man, and shows his generous spirit in turning everything over to his wife and leaving himself penniless. We certainly have to deal with, here, a many-sided man, and it is a difficult task to give a proper estimate of his character. Perhaps the best estimate may be found in the following description given of him, many years ago, by a professor of a western college: "The most careless observer will not fail to see the remarkable development of the front lobe of his brain, the elevation in the region of firmness, and the irregularity of the lateral regions, indicating a marked, decided, and peculiar character of great intellectual activity. He is remarkable for the readiness and extent of his observation and memory, his readiness in the acquisition of diversified knowledge, historical, geographical, astronomical, biographical, professional, or pertaining to the business of life. He would naturally become highly intelligent, learned and well informed, in any pursuit in which he might engage, whether literary, professional or practical. He is a bold and independent thinker, an inflexible lover of justice, cordial and constant in friendship, and never forgetful of an injury or a kindness. He is not aggressive nor contentious, but very quick and forcible in

resistance to dictation or encroachment. He is disposed to shape his course independent of parties or cliques, but possesses the ambition, intellect and unflinching will to carry out his purposes. He is quick in perceiving and deciding upon what is before him, and therefore able to transact any business with rapidity. He possesses a large endowment of patience and fortitude, which enable him to control the manifestation of his feelings, without, however, becoming really tranquil under annoyance. But these endowments enable him to persevere faithfully in difficult undertakings, and to struggle manfully with the difficulties of life. The temperament is restless and the sensibilities quick and keen; but the predominant tendency is toward intellectual pursuits. Here he might by concentrated effort, attain the eminence due to merit, but he would not seek the factious reputation won by petty intrigues and pandering to popular prejudices." In a recent letter, Dr. S. B. Munn, of Waterbury, Conn., one of his most intimate friends, writes as follows: "I formed Dr. Wilder's acquaintance in 1870, and have known him intimately ever since. He visited me twice a year ever since, except the last three years, spending from one to two weeks with me each time. "He was always instructive, on nearly all subjects, and each time he visited with me he gave additional evidence of his wonderful knowledge, scholarship and memory. Once while visiting with me, I think it was in 1903, he gave a lecture before the Waterbury Scientific Society, of which he was an honorary member, on 'Manethos' History of the Dynasties of Egypt,' naming each dynasty, each king of Northern, Southern, and Middle Egypt, from the first dynasty until the reign of Cleopatra, and the most important occurrences during the reign of each, without referring to any notes whatsoever. "On another occasion, before the same society, he gave a lecture on China; and before a large audience in this city, in 1903, he gave one of the most eloquent addresses against the crime of Compulsory Vaccination ever heard by any audience anywhere. In 1902 he edited three numbers of the Waterbury Anti-Vaccinator, which I published that year, and this very materially aided us in combating the Health authorities in their attempt to enforce the rite upon the people of this city. "Through his frequent visits with me he became well known here, and the local press gave him splendid obituary notices, one of them ending with an expression of mine, which I considered none too fit a tribute to offer, namely: 'A patron of all Knowledge, scarce paralleled in a century.'" He was of a religious turn of mind, but abhorred the creeds and dogmas of the church. He was tolerant of the opinions of others and insisted on being left to enjoy his own belief. He usually kept his opinions to himself, but when questioned he did not hesitate to state them, and give his reasons therefor. His motto was, "Truth for authority; not authority for truth," so he never hesitated to adopt an unpopular cause simply because the majority was against it. Once convinced that it was right, he would fight for and defend it with all the courage and energy that comes from honest conviction. Of his religious beliefs he writes as follows: "My creed is very brief, though, as usual, more than I understand. I believe in God, a divine personality,* the First and the Only, and from whom are all things. By Him the universe subsists. He is the Father of the spirits of men. This law is written everywhere, and His children, inspired and guided by Him, perceive and obey it. Such may, and sometimes do, have their powers and faculties enlarged, and their perceptions quickened,

till they are able to do and declare things which are often esteemed supernatural. But such faculties are for the pure and the true. Man comes into God as the alone going to the Alone. Of this, however, and indeed of most interior experiences, it is not well to speak much or often." ------------* I have extreme difficulty in believing Gunn acurately quotes Wilder here, or at best it is from the 1857 autobiographical account when Wilder was 34. (See note above) Wilder was a well-known Neo-Platonist of long-standing, and there is no "God" that can be remotely ascribed as a "personality" in this philosophy, nor is the sentiment reflected is his voluminous writings. This is far too conventional and out of character to be Wilder's mature writing. It would not be the first time words were put in a deceased person's mouth to suit an author's, editor's, or publisher's own viewpoints. - m.r.j., digital editor ------------From what is here recorded it is plain to see that his tastes and aspirations were those of a philosopher. He was eager to learn the causes and reasons, the principles by which things are governed. He was never satisfied with an ipse dixit. He always desired to know for himself what was right, as between one human being and another, and to know no law higher or more sacred than that. "What we owe to one another," he would say, "is good will and faithful service." The death of one who has done so much for the cause of Liberal Medicine, for the advancement of science and philosophic thought touches all with vivid regret, but those of us who knew him as a friend and colleague cannot find words to express the fulness of our grief. There was nothing of cant or affectation about our departed friend. He was always kind and courteous to those with whom he came in contact. He never failed to stand by even a casual friend in the hour of trial, and it may truly be said of him that "his left hand knew not what his right hand did." In thinking of our loss, it occurs to me how appropriate to our dead are the closing words of John Morley on the death of John Stuart Mill. He says: "We may console ourselves with the reflection offered by the dying Socrates to his sorrowing friends; 'he who has arrayed the soul in her own proper jewels of moderation, and justice and courage and nobleness and truth, is ever ready for the journey when his time comes.' We have lost a great teacher and example of knowledge and virtue, but men will long feel the presence of his character, making them ashamed of what is indolent and selfish, and encourage them to all disinterested labor, both in trying to do good and trying to find out what the good is - which is harder." Although the brain and heart of him of whom we write are now at rest, he still lives here on earth, in his teachings and deeds of kindness. Thousands have been benefitted by his writings and his kindly advice, and through those he has enlightened, many thousands will continue to be benefitted through him. He has sown the seed, but the harvests will follow year after year without end. Whatever immortality there may be beyond the grave we know not; but certain it is that he has made for himself an immortality here on earth that we know and feel - an immortality so real, so ennobling, that it should inspire every living soul to devote their lives toward bettering Humanity.

I fear that I have already exceeded the limits of a magazine article, without doing justice to the memory of Dr. Wilder; and I hope that someone will, in the near future, prepare a complete biography, and collect his many valuable writings for publication in a substantial form. (Metaphysical Magazine, vol. 23, no. 5, Nov., 1908) -----------------------