“ We are able to discern the period rapidly approximating when man will take up arms against his fellow-man, and go forth to contend with the enemies of Republican liberty, and to assert at the point of the bayonet those rights of which so large a portion of their fellow-creatures are deprived. Again will the soil of America be saturated with the blood of freedom-loving children, and her noble monuments, those sublime attestations of patriotic will and determination, will tremble, from base to summit, with the heavy roar of artillery, and the thunder of cannon. ”

“ It has allowed itself to be made a cat’s paw by the National Divorce League for its retrogressive policy. The welfare of society is deeply concerned in breaking up all unhappy, discordant marriages, which are simply nurseries of misery and crime. Every generous sentiment should prompt us to go to the relief of the large number of women who suffer in secret from tyranny and brutality, while from poverty, timidity, helplessness, and a dread of publicity or censure, they endure their wrongs in silence, and continue to bear children cursed from their conception with intemperance and brutality. ”

“ Having discarded the whole scheme of Christian theology, there is no reason why I should reject the fundamental principles of religion, which are at the basis of all religions, and which are sanctioned by the study of man’s religious nature. The spirit of the Christian religion as it appeared among the founders of Christianity appears to me a more perfect expression of religion than I find in any other of the world’s religions, more spiritual, devoted, loving, and heroic, more in accordance with the true religion which belongs to man’s noblest faculties. ”

“ Is it not possible to have a protest against the barbarism of war from men of influence, who have sufficient mental power and strength of character to command the attention of the nation? When Elihu Burritt and Robert Dale Owen were alive I thought it might be possible, but it was not attempted. Is it possible now? Is all the genius and energy of the American people bound in fidelity to the Moloch of war? ”

“ There is a nobler religion than that of American churches, a nobler statesmanship than that of Mr. Tilden (which is a good specimen of the popular sort) , a nobler education than that of our American schools and colleges—an education, a statesmanship, and a religion which will wash the blood from the sword, bury the sword in the earth, and proclaim the fraternity of man in all the nations of the earth. ”

“ Indeed, our whole fabric of opinion and morals is fundamentally false, and the Journal of Man goes to record as an indictment at the bar of heaven against the polished barbarism of modern society, against which we hear only a feeble and almost inaudible protest. ”

“ He has invested us with power and authority to influence and guide the actions of mankind, and aid them in their struggles for right and truth. He has bade us arm ourselves with the weapons of love and justice, and hasten to the rescue of our struggling brother man. ”

“ A large amount of that which the world calls greatness is nothing more than vigorous and brilliant commonplace. Taine, who is the most splendid writer upon Bonaparte, ascribes to him intellectual greatness, but it was greatness on a common plane—the plane of animal life. He had a grand comprehension of physical and social forces, of everything upon the selfish plane, for he was absolutely selfish, but of nothing that belongs to the higher life of man, to the civilization of coming centuries. ”

“ Buchanan was the greatest discoverer of this age, if not of any age of the world. We regard the publication of such a journal as an event of the century, greater than political changes. Prof. Buchanan by his discoveries has laid the foundation for the revolution of science.”—Worthington Advance, Minnesota.
“It is designed to occupy the highest realm of knowledge attainable by man, hence will not attract those who have no aspiration toward such knowledge. ”

“ Congressmen stand on no higher moral plane than the people who elect them, and it is the moral faculties that elevate men into the atmosphere of pure truth.
But ah! could we have had a Congress and State Legislatures in 1860, composed of men sufficiently elevated in sentiment to realize the state of the nation and the terrible necessity of preserving the peace by conciliatory statesmanship, that four years of bloody horror and devastation might have been spared.
Will the time ever come when nations shall be guided by wisdom sufficient to avoid convulsions and calamities? ”

“ The grandly revolutionary science of Anthropology, which offers in one department (Psychometry) “the dawn of a new civilization,” and in other departments an entire revolution in social, ethical, educational, and medical philosophy, has experienced the same fate as all other great scientific and philanthropic innovations, in being compelled to sustain itself against the mountain mass of established error by the power of truth alone. The investigator whose life is devoted to the evolution of the truth cannot become its propagandist. ”

“ A wise statesmanship would not seek to hurry mankind on to this great crisis, the results of which have never been foreseen or provided for, but would realize that the greater the amount of inferior and demoralized population the more terrible must that crisis be when it comes—a crisis which can be safely borne only by elevating the entire population to a higher condition than any nation has ever heretofore attained. ”

“ It would be an unsolvable problem to-day did we not perceive through spiritual science the immense preponderance of good in the glorious plan of life of which this world shows only the beginning.
As an anthropologist, I cannot but esteem and cherish the religious element of human nature. Sincere worship is simply the most exalted love, and fills human life with nobility and benevolence; let those who can, worship the divine ”

“ If the evil elements at work to-day predominate in our population, which retrogressive legislation would promote, it will be a time of calamity and social convulsions; but if the benevolent and enlightening influences now at work predominate (as we may hope) , two centuries hence will bring us to a consummation of prosperity, enlightenment, and happiness, of which the pessimistic and sceptical thinkers of to-day have no conception. A thorough comprehension of the science of man will lead us in the path of enlightened progress. ”

“ What is the popular judgment, or even the judgment of popular leaders worth upon any great question? The masses of mankind have their judgments enmeshed and inwoven in a web of mechanical habituality, compelling them to believe that what is and has been must continue to be in the future, thus limiting their conceptions to the commonplace. Their leaders do not rise to nobler conceptions, for if they did not sympathize with the popular, commonplace conceptions and prejudices they would not be leaders. ”

“ The study of the anatomy of the brain and the innumerable experiments I have made on the brain, showing how completely the brain of the impressible can be revolutionized in its action in a few minutes, make it very apparent that society as a whole is responsible for the continued existence of criminals, paupers, and lunatics; for there should not be one, and would not be, if mankind could be aroused from their criminal apathy and ignorance to the performance of our duty in education. ”

“ A peace society might possibly be established in Boston, if its best people could be roused, but the society that we have is little better than a piece of ornamental nomenclature. When there is anything to be done it understands how not to do it. When Mr. Gladstone had performed the most glorious act of his life in the preservation of the peace of Europe against the fierce opposition of the turbulent element in England, an act which will make the brightest jewel in his crown of honor, there was an opportunity of sustaining him by American sympathy. ”

“ Not until there is sufficient intelligence and wisdom to appreciate the science of man, to understand the wondrous faculties of the human soul, to follow their guidance, and to listen to the wisdom of our ancestors as they speak to us from a higher world. ”

“ The Boston Herald estimates very fairly his intellectual status, saying: “He spoke easily. His stories were well told, his points well put. He invested people with a new atmosphere, but he did not set them to thinking, and can hardly be called a thinker himself. Much as he has done to forward the vital interests of humanity, he has contributed nothing to the vital thinking of his generation. The secret of his power is the wonderful combination of animalism, with a certain bright way of stating the thoughts which are more or less in the minds of all men. ”

“ He believed in the divinity of man and made others believe in it.” In other words, he added much to the sentiment of his hearer, but little to his thought. This was greatness of character and personal power, but not intellectual greatness. Beecher was a great man, but not a great thinker. The great thinker overwhelms his hearers with new and strange thought. The multitude, fixed in habit, reject it all. Clear and dispassionate thinkers feel that they cannot reject it, but it is too new even to them to elicit their enthusiasm. ”

“ Great truths are always buried in silence, if possible, when they first arrive. It is probable that the grandest prophecies in their far-reaching scope will always come from such sources, and the grandest seers will be inspired. The grandest prophecy of the ultimate destiny and power of “Anthropology” came to me direct from an exalted source in the spirit world, and no human hand had aught to do with its production. But the human psychometric faculty has the same prophetic power in a more limited and more practical sphere. ”

“ And these mystic shadows, flitting about in the thick grayness, were unbodied souls; not like visitants from the bright summer land, nor yet beings resembling the dark, undeveloped “dwellers on the threshold,” whom earthly crimes held bound near their former homes, but they seemed as if they were misty emanations of unripe human bodies, scarcely conscious of their state, yet living, actual individualities, once resident in mortal tenements, but torn from their sheltering envelope too soon, or too suddenly, to have acquired the strength and consistency of a fresh existence. ”

“ In other words, the present status of humanity above the animal kingdom was attained not by a sudden burst of creative power, making a distinct and isolated being, but by the gradual and consecutive influx, which evolved new faculties and organs,—a process called evolution. How slow or how rapid this process may have been, science has not yet determined; but it would require incalculable millions of years if nothing but the common exciting effects of environment and necessity have been operative in evolution ”

“ Meantime the crash of military music seemed to thrill through the clairvoyant’s ears, at first merely marking the tramp of the vast bodies of infantry with a joyous rhythm, but anon, as it died off in their receding march, wild, agonizing shrieks commingled with its tones, and the thundering roll of the drums seemed to be muffled by deep, low, but heart-rending groans, as of human sufferers in their last mortal agony. ”

“ It may be a shocking proposition to say that it is dangerous to live among Christians, but it is a sober reality, to which I invite the attention of clergymen and moralists who wish to live up to their profession, and who have enough of the ethical faculty to realize the central principle of true Christianity.
If our statesmanship, religion, and education cannot protect us against such horrors, may we not justly say it is a false statesmanship, a false religion, and a false education? ”

“ Thus do we hold our destiny in our own hands. If we will cultivate the faculties which are most in need of cultivation, their organs, receiving more blood, will grow faster than any other portions of the brain, while the organs that are kept in check and deprived of activity will gradually decline in power and size, so that the character will become essentially changed. It is in the power of every individual who has the necessary determination to change essentially his own nature for better or worse, as well as to modify and enlarge his capacities, changing the structure of his brain ”

“ If then we recognize the spiritual being in man, and the same spiritual being disembodied as a potential existence,—if, moreover, we recognize the illimitable and incomprehensible psychical power behind the universe, of which man is one expression, we cannot fail to see that the embryonic development of animals from a lower to a higher form is entirely possible and probable; and in the absence of any other practicable method of evolution to higher types we are compelled to adopt this as the most rational. ”