“ In this profound expression we have the consummation of philosophy, for the purpose of his philosophy is to know God, “Nunc dimittis,” we need to know nothing more,—we know we know, and so we are God’s. “This line of thought brought up at every step some phase of Plato and Aristotle,” said the professor, and we are thankful that he did not resurrect any more of the puerilities of Athenian ignorance. “Knowing of knowing” is quite enough, which he repeats to be emphatic. “All true being is in the form of the infinite or self-related, and related to itself as the knowing of knowing. ”

“ Here it is: “Logic is often called the art of reasoning, and many people study it with a view to mastering an art of correct thinking, hoping thereby to get an instrument useful in the acquirement of truth. It may be doubted, however, whether the mind gets much aid in the pursuit of truth by studying logic.” There is no doubt at all about it,—not one rational individual out of a hundred thousand collegians will confess that he ever got any benefit in reasoning or in pursuing truth from Aristotle’s syllogistic formula. “All men are mortal—Socrates is a man, and therefore Socrates is mortal.” ”

“ In contemplating these immense results of a successful investigation of the functions of the brain, I can see no logical escape from the conclusion that such a revelation of the functions of the brain is by far the most important event that belongs to the history of vital science—an event so romantically different from the common, slow progress of science when cultivated by men of ability, that I do not wonder at the incredulity which naturally opposes its recognition, and seems to render the most unanimous and conclusive testimony from honorable scientists apparently ineffective. ”

“ This is not philosophy, but might be called theology, and not legitimate theology even, but supra-theological—for all sane theology admits that man cannot know God. It is a desperate, insane suggestion that we must know the unknowable, and that if we cannot do that we can have no philosophy. Of course men who think this way know nothing of philosophy, and are beyond the reach of reason. ”

“ This is the grand discovery—the last great contribution to philosophy from Concord’s greatest philosopher. We suddenly discover that we have been syllogizing like philosophers, as Mrs. Malaprop discovered that her children had been speaking English. The illustration of this overwhelming discovery is peculiarly happy, for he applies it to the discovery of a red flannel rag in the back yard or garden, and, after detecting the red flannel by syllogism, he advances to the grander problem of showing how, by philosophic methods, we can actually distinguish an old tin can from an elephant. ”

“ I was preparing to publish in several volumes the reorganized science as the Pathognomic System, when the consummation of my researches, by a brilliant discovery, led me into a new world of knowledge—to the full development of the science of Anthropology, according to which the brain gives organic expression to functions which are essentially located in the soul, and the body gives organic manifestation to functions which are controlled in the brain, while the body reacts upon the brain and the brain upon the soul. ”

“ She is much indebted to the Concord philosophers for lending their respectability to her labyrinth of self-contradictions.
One quotation more, to give the essence of this Concord philosophy. “The Divine Being exists for himself as one object. This gives us the Logos, or the only-begotten. The Logos knows himself as personal perfection, and also as generated, though in an infinite past time. This is its recognition of its first principle and its unbegotten ‘Father.’ But whatever it knows in self-consciousness, it creates or makes to exist,” and more of the same sort. ”

“ The Concord Symposium and their Greatest Contribution to Philosophy.
Let no one accuse the critic of irreverence, who doubts the wisdom of universities, and of pedantic scholars who burrow like moles in the mouldering remnants of antiquity, but see nothing of the glorious sky overhead. While I have no reverence for barren or wasted intellect, I have the profoundest respect for the fruitful intellect which produces valuable results—for the vast energy of the lower class of intellectual powers, which have developed our immense wealth of the physical sciences and their useful applications. ”

“ The destruction of stultifying superstitions is as necessary in education and literature as in religion. The ponderous blows of Lord Bacon upon this Greek superstition of the literary classes did not prove fatal, for the same reason that animal organisms of a low, cold-blooded, grade are hard to kill,—they must be cut up in fragments before their death becomes complete; superstitions and beliefs that have no element of intelligent reason, and are perpetuated by social influence, authority, and domination over the young become a blind force that resists all influence from reason. ”

“ The support of the medical college in which I was Dean of the Faculty, the hearty endorsement by the Faculty of Indiana State University, and by numerous committees of investigation, seem to count as nothing with the conservative portion of the medical profession, who have ever understood how to ignore so simple and positive a demonstration as that of Harvey, or so practical a demonstration as that of Hahnemann, or so irresistible a mass of facts as those of modern psychic science. ”

“ The mountain mass of inertia, which opposes, passively, all fundamental changes, cannot now resist scientific demonstration as it has in the past. The instruction in the College of Therapeutics, is thoroughly demonstrative, leaving no room for doubt, and it gives a species of knowledge which ought to be a part of every one’s education—a knowledge of the constitution of man, not obtainable to-day in any medical or literary college, nor in our mammoth libraries. ”

“ Mental philosophy was very limited in its scope, and had little or nothing of a practical and scientific nature. The soul was not recognised as a subject for science. The body was studied apart from the soul, and the brain, the home of the soul, was enveloped in mystery—so as to leave even physiological science shrouded in darkness, as the central and controlling organ of life was considered an inaccessible mystery. ”

“ As it seemed a very interesting department of natural science, I began by comparing the heads of my acquaintances with the phrenological map, and discovering so many striking coincidences that I was gradually satisfied as to its substantial truth, and I do not believe that any one has ever thus tested the discoveries of Gall and Spurzheim, without perceiving their general correctness, while many, with less critical observation, have accepted them as absolutely true. ”

“ An attentive study of the obscure phraseology of this philosopher enables one to discover that the great and tragical question concerns the reality of reality, or what the reality is, and whether it is real or not, and how we can find it out. The way to find out whether that which we think is, is or is not, is to go back to Aristotle, who is the only man that ever understood the is-ness of the is. ”

“ There might not be one man in a century to undertake such a task (for all the centuries of civilization had produced but one such man—the illustrious Gall) , and when he appeared his voice would not be decisive. I would, therefore, appear not as presenting positive knowledge, but as contributing another theory, which the medical profession, regardless of my labors, would treat as a mere hypothesis.1
It was absolutely necessary that the functions of the brain should be demonstrated as positively as those of the spinal nerves had been demonstrated by Majendie and Bell. ”

“ We feel that we have been very fortunate in finding so valuable a source of knowledge, whose future benefits to the human race, in many ways, cannot be briefly stated, and we would assure all who may attend this college, or read the published works of Prof. Buchanan, and his monthly, the Journal of Man, that they will, when acquainted with the subject, be ready to unite with us in appreciating and honoring the greatest addition ever made to biological and psychological sciences. ”

“ I would simply state that the scientific discovery and exposition of Psychometry is equivalent to the dawn of new intellectual civilization, since it enables us to advance rapidly toward perfection all sciences and forms of knowledge now known, and to introduce new sciences heretofore unknown. ”

“ But it is not aware that the Concord straw is merely the dried weeds that Lord Bacon cut up and threw out of the field of respectable literature over two hundred and sixty years ago. “What man (says the Herald) , with any serious purpose in life, has any time to waste over what somebody thinks Aristotle ought to have thought or said.” And my readers may ask, why give the valuable space of the Journal of Man to examining such trash? ”

“ Are they not at this time utterly and unconsciously blind to the progress of spiritual sciences, to the revelations of psychometry and anthropology—placing themselves, indeed, in that hopeless class who are too ignorant to know their ignorance, too far in the dark to know or suspect that there is any light? ”

“ Hence the more tranquil habits and greater predominance of the moral nature in women increases their longevity, while the greater indulgence of the passions and appetites, the greater muscular and intellectual force among men, are hostile to longevity. Hence the establishment of a true religion, or the application of the “New Education,” will greatly increase longevity. It will also be increased by greater care of health in manufacturing establishments, and by diminishing the hours of labor; for exhausting physical labor not only shortens life but predisposes to intemperance. ”

“ Thus, each of the three repositories of power is a psycho-physiological representation of the man; more physical in the body, more spiritual in the soul, but in the brain a more perfect psycho-physiological representation of man as he is in the present life. ”

“ The Concord School.—We are glad that the Concord School is over, and we should think that the people that have been there would be glad to get home and take part in the things which interest average folks. If people like that sort of thing and can afford it, there is no reason why they should not go there and stay. But to the average man the whole thing looks about as near time wasted as anything which even Boston furnishes to the “uncultured” world outside.—Boston Record. ”

“ The Catholic confessional is a recognition and application of the principles of great value. But the confessional of the narrow-minded and miseducated priest should be superseded by the confessional and the admonition of Anthropology.
Sterne, in his Tristam Shandy, says, “Whenever a man’s conscience does accuse him (as it seldom errs on that side) , he is guilty, and unless he is melancholy and hypochondriac, there is always sufficient ground for the accusation. But the converse of the proposition will not hold true,” that if it does not accuse, the man is innocent. ”

“ Aristotle has some thoroughly absurd suggestions on the same subject which Professor H. did not reproduce.
How does he grapple with the idea of God, which is the essence of his philosophy? Here it is: “The first principle as pure self-activity, must necessarily have the permanent form of knowing of knowing, for this root form of self-consciousness is entirely self-related. The self sees the essential self, the self-activity is the object of self.” ”

“ Is not longevity in some sense a measure of true civilization or improvement of the race? It is certainly an evidence of conformity to the Divine laws of life and health, which reward right action with happiness, health, and long life. ”

“ According to the census of Germany, December, 1875, there were 160 persons over 100 years of age, of whom there was one woman of 115 years, and another of 117, one man of 118, and another of 120. Our own country has a better record of longevity than this.
Let us rest content with the fact that the world has many centenarians, and that we too are free to live a hundred years, if our ancestors have done their duty in transmitting a good constitution, and we have done our duty in preserving it. ”

“ The lingering superstition of believing because they had famous warriors, orators, statesmen, historians, poets, and sculptors, while entirely ignorant of science and philosophy, that their philosophic puerilities are worthy of adoration in the 19th century, a superstition which makes a fetish of the writings of Plato and Aristotle, has been tolerated long enough, and as no one has attempted to give a critical estimate of this effete literature since Lord Bacon did something in that way, I shall not much longer postpone this duty. ”

“ If my readers are interested in the destruction of venerable and powerful falsehoods that stand in the way of every form of progress, I may be tempted to publish a cheap edition of my work on Greek Philosophy and Logic. ”