The intellectual editor of the Kansas City Journal has made some very philosophic remarks on the materialistic philosophy of fashionable Scientists, which with some abridgment are here presented:

“As an illustration of its methods of dealing with so subtle a thing as human intelligence, we have a recent singular example in Paris, by the eminent physician Charcot, and others, which illustrates how great men in special departments walk blindfold over things that afford no mystery to common minds. We allude to certain experiments in hypnotism—the professional name for mesmerism. The medical profession for more than half a century sneered at the discoveries of Mesmer, until now compelled to recognize them, they have not the manliness to acknowledge the fact, but invent a new and inaccurate nomenclature to conceal their change of front. To make a long story short these gentlemen have put a subject under the influence one day, enjoined him to commit a theft or a murder at a given hour the next day, and despite every effort of will on the part of the subject, the crimes have been attempted, and the victim only saved from himself by the interposition of the operator, who was present to remove the influence—or through the understanding of the party against whom the offence was to be committed, in the form of the robbery actually carried out.“But what does science do with this fact? Nothing but announce it, and then proceed to dig among molecules and their related agitations for the solution of the mystery.”

[This is what certain scientists do, but their follies are not chargeable to Science, nor to the whole body of Scientists. The ablest thinkers to-day, the deepest inquirers, look to the powers of the soul, and the new anthropology traces these powers to their localities in the brain.—Ed. of Journal.]

“How old is this fact? As old as the race. At one time it was called necromancy, at another witchcraft, at another the inspiration of God, at a subsequent time animal magnetism, at another called after one of its more modern discoverers,—mesmerism—now hypnotism—which is only another name for magnetic sleep—if anybody knows what that is—or for somnambulism. Common sense tells common people that it is only an abnormal manifestation of the power that gives one person control over another, or enables one person to influence another. The simple every-day habit of exacting a promise from your neighbor to do a certain thing, or for you to make a like promise, and execute it. Sickness is a partial compliance with the conditions of mortality—death being the complete process. So the hypnotic experiences are the completed illustrations of the common power which we call personal influence. That is all. But that is not mysterious enough for learned people—it is not scientific enough—as everybody can understand it.

“Then, too, it suggests another thing that is fatal to it in the estimation of the teacher—it suggests that what we call the human mind or soul is a potential thing, that acts through the every-day machinery of our bodies, and may be more or less within the grasp of the common mind. There is a higher plane of knowledge than that of mere physical science, and if the theologian mistook its teaching, it is no reason why the pursuit of that knowledge on this higher plane should be ignored. Hence it is that this discovery by Charcot and others, to which we allude, has as yet been barren of fruit, because the methods of science to which the discoverers are wedded forbid the admission of the psychic problem that underlies the remarkable phenomena.

“And just here, it may as well be said first as last,—that the profession to which these eminent men belong, nor any one school of applied science, will ever read the lesson of these experiments, nor will any of the so-called regular schools of learning. The riddle will be read by some thinker outside, and when the bread-and-butter purveyors of theology, science and the schools have become indoctrinated, and prefer to pay their money for the new instead of the old—then these self-constituted teachers of humanity will all know that the cow was to eat the grindstone—and teach the fact. We simply state a fact, known to history, that the progress of the world is due to the inventor and discoverer, and not to the schools. Every single thing, from the advent of modern astronomy to the electric light, has been from the ranks of the people by discovery or invention, and had to fight its way against the teaching class, from time immemorial. The circulation of the blood, which every pig-sticker knew since knives were invented, had to be forced upon medical science by a quack. And now, although the phenomena we refer to have been before the teaching class since history records anything, and although Mesmer taught it experimentally eighty years ago, science has now only got so far as to admit the existence of the phenomena.

“Why have not the professions given these things more attention, and why have they in these modern days for three quarters of a century practically denied their existence? That question is a legitimate one. And at the risk of being charged with unfriendliness, it must be said that it was either from an inability to think or from a narrow creedism that will not accept a truth from outside discovery. The effect of this, and what constitutes a crime in the teaching class, is, that it has for all these long years shut out this now accepted knowledge from the masses of humanity who look to this teaching class as authority,—and to use a business form of speech,—pay them for finding and teaching the truth. And so the learning of the world and the common mass of mind has, after nearly a century, to begin where the ostracised Mesmer left off—a long, dark, weary denial of the truth by the simple refusal to investigate. This is a serious arraignment, but it is admitted to-day by the scientific world to be but the simple truth.

“And what do we find now? Why, these same men who, for more than eighty years, have been denying this truth, now whistle down the wind as fanatics, dreamers and cranks, those who all the time have recognized the truth, and been seeking the law underlying its remarkable phenomena.”

[This strictly just arraignment applies to the entire body of the old-fashioned and so-called regular medical and clerical professions, all of whom have been educated into ignorance on these subjects by the colleges, which are the chief criminals in this warfare against science and progress. It was impossible to teach the true science of man in any college but the one of which I was one of the founders and the presiding officer; to obtain the necessary freedom in teaching the highest forms of science, I have been compelled to establish the College of Therapeutics in Boston.—Ed. of Journal.]

And this class holds simply that the human being is a living soul, that, for the time being, acts through the organism we call the human body, and that these living beings have an affinity of conditions by which they act and react one upon another, the manifestation of which we call society or social life. That is all there is to this seeming mystery when reduced to simple terms. It is a question that chemistry cannot deal with because analysis is not the method. Molecules, to use a homely phrase, are a good thing, but molecules don’t think, and this thing we are considering does think. Molecules are amenable to chemical affinities, and their condition one instant is not and cannot be their condition the next instant. So, if to-day at twelve o’clock the molecules are in combination, chemically, to suggest a theft, they may undergo, and we see do undergo, billions of changes before the hour of meridian arrives to-morrow—and not at all likely at that exact moment to be in the stealing combination again. Or, if so, it is not likely to be for stealing exactly the same article it was combined on the day previous. Yet this infinite series of impossibilities must be possible to have the experiments we refer to come true—on the theory of molecular action. This is one of those absurdities that men call the marvellous discoveries of science. No crank in Christendom ever conceived anything so utterly absurd.

Common sense comes to our help here, and tells us that this power is from an intelligence that controls molecules, and that this molecular activity is but the motor force which this intelligence uses to execute its purpose; that this purpose is, or may be, continuous, because this intelligence is continuous. And as it is thus paramount, and controlling as to this motor force, which to us is the phenomena of what we call life, it must be thus paramount, be persistent—or in other words, immortal. And it must be immortal because it has been the agent of conception and growth—or antecedent. And if it had the antecedent potency, its potentiality cannot cease when it becomes consequent—or when the machinery which is propelled by this motor force is worn out, or broken, and its use destroyed.