by the Creator of man and this universe. Hence, then, in all of the vast creation by which man is surrounded, the grandest study, yea, the most profitable study, which we can indulge in, is, first, man, next the brain, next the varied, marvelous and transcendant wonders of a brain's function, mind or soul.

What care I whether I am an individualist or a universalist? Still less do I care whether I have within me certain elements pertaining to the idealism of Plato or Hegel, the pessimism of Shopenhauer, the pantheism of Spinoza, the materialism of Democritus and Epicurus, or the theism of Dascartes and Liebnitz; or whether I have a gift for modern socialism. These are as mockery to me so long as I am a healthy and happy man.

This theme of man is a wondrous theme, for variety hath not either soul or existence without it. With him variety is his divinity of joy and the clustering favor of consideration. Yet in the ardent rapture of my thought do I say, amidst all the things which have birth in life, or which abide upon this earth, or which have gazed at the stars and peered into the illimitable to ponder o'er planets-aye, over universe after universe, and anon, even who have strode upon our earthly crust and have overflowed in grandeur, purled in sweetness, welled in joy, or shook the ambient atmosphere in thrilling force by laugh or howl in beastial sound, in music's way or fiendish glee, or has o'er oceans breadth in ease and comfort sped, who inspects the ocean's depth, delves into the bowels of the earth, or the universe whose thought and force have made a circumambient air thrill and moan, or peal in wonder, that have bridled the lightning and turned its force to a plaything of curiosity and use, man is the greatest. I think that man, forsooth, is the only created divine mystery, and thus I say in bated breath and seeming dread to fully agree with Goethe, "That it is not good to meddle with divine mysteries." But, alas, and alackaday, what then darest man not meddle with! Gods, will I not ask thee this question, for it is but my manly right. Nay, upon my soul, I'll wager that thou must agree with me--what is there on this mundane sphere that dare revile and praise a man? True as gospel, yea, 'tis an eternal truth-man is that thing himself, which darest and dost eternally praise and abuse himself. Anon, I

say, man is the only creature created, who is ever intent and determined upon telling all he knows. Nay, thou canst go from the fulsomeness of tragedy, from the grandeur of a universe, from the illimitable to the levity of comedy; yet thou canst not, for an instant, tell the depth and wonder of his speechful variety. Yes, 'tis true, man is but a bundle of nerves and nerves but well in habit. They are massed cords, brains and cells of habit; hence thou canst say in verity that man is a creature of fixed and established purpose, a fiend of involtunary tendency, an animal of repetition, a marvel of temperament. He grows in custom's shape, he forms as his nature prevails; and thus 'tis said that he can do no more than nature makes him. His soul's virtue then springs from his vital action; he is but the sum total of all life. Ponder, think and muse as you will upon the vital action of plants, mollusks, reptiles, birds and animals-place them side by side and in truthful view depict their every act-the essential feature of all these forms abide in man. Yes, picture as thou wilt, picture from now until doomsday and the doomsday beyond, and thou hast in man the limit and the wondrous contrariety of all life.

I do but believe that man is that mystery which collides with universal impossibilities. Is not man that mystery which holds all probabilities and possibilities? Yea, truly, he is the sum and essence of this universal life. Nay, then, I do but marvel and in wonder read page after page, theme after theme, word after word, which tells what man is. Then, forsooth, I think that if thou couldst tell what man is not, thou, indeed, would tell the Daedalian marvel and wonder of this world. Thus Paschal says, "What a chimera is man." Just as well will I say what a verity is man. Again he says, "What a singular phenomenon." Aye, thus I say, what a marvelous ocultation. Anon, thus he says, "What a chaos." To me he is the music of the spheres. Thus he says, "What a contrariety." Anon, so say I what a sameness, what a oneness. Anon, he says, "A judge of all things, yet a feeble worm. To me he is more than this, he is a powered intelligence, a perfection of force. Again, he says, "Shrine of truth, yet a mass of doubt and uncertainty." Yea, he is truth itself, a master of doubt, a creature of absolute certainty.

Thus he says, "At once the glory and scorn of the universe." To me he is still the glory and the dread of the universe. "If he boasts, I lower him," says Paschal. If thou beest a man thy superiority must be God-like to lower him. Thus again, he says: "If he lowers himself I raise him." Nay, then if thou canst do this thou art more than man. "Yea, I do contradict him." Yet, forsooth, thy very contradiction is the proof of thy inferiority and his superiority. Nay, then, here and this much do I agree with thee, Paschal: When thou sayest, "Till he learns, he is a monster incomprehensible mystery."

It is untrue that equality is a law of nature-nature has no equality, its sovereign law is subordination and dependence. Superiority in anything is the fate of creation and growth, nay, the will of God. How great is the crucible of time. Nay, 'tis the changeful phase of everything. 'Tis said of man: "Dust thou art." Yea, 'tis an ancient metaphor, perchance 'tis right, but this dust of man is that wondrous something which is eternally and forever put in the right place. Yes, 'tis living dust, immortal dust, that dust which connects time with eternity, life with immortality. Yea, still more is this dust the tremulous, brilliant atoms. Aye, the precious stones of a chemic world in which each atom combines rarer beauty, more wondrous construction than all the jewels of earth, containing within them. the brilliant rays of the sun, the silver sheen of the moon, the vibrant light of the stars, the hues of darkness, the radiant elements of earth, and above all the divinity of God. Aye, this dust combines the forces of nature with the inconceivable, incalculable, imponderable force of God. Yea, each atom of man is the essence of materiality and of wisdom, of omnipotence and omniscience. Aye, true it is, this dust is the nucleus of all life, the hilum of earthly materiality and immateriality. Yes, this is man.

Now, then, lo and behold, this world is a reality outlined and limited. Yea, unceasingly grand and marvelous in its products, still the medium of a creator, for the Genesis of life's greatest and most illimitable force-mind. Man's brain is the organ of the highest, most powerful, most expansive, most utilitarian product of life. Man's brain viewed as matter is but a convoluted mass whose tenuity is

frailer than the petal of a rose. Its form singularly varied in contour, depressions, crypts, teeming in nondescript multiple streaks of gray and white matter, quaint cavities, cornuaed chambers, holding within themselves expressionless oval whitened forms, rounded ivory-like looking orbs, hidden canals and wandering mazy depths. Man's brain is a seeming mass of mushy incongruities, whose frail fantastic construction, whose tottering, vacillating weight seems to court shapelessness and annihilation; compared to the immensity of its accomplishment it is the most amazingly insignificant looking substance made by God. Yet, in verity, it represents the grandest temple of this universe. This pulpy mass, this pulpy mass, this soft heap, represents the zenith and the nadir of God's created substances. Nay, then, no aggregate mass, but its ownself in this universe has like indescribable mystery and sublimity. Gaze on on this dædalian pile, yea, ponder deeply, reverentially upon this tortiled paradigm. Inspect its intricate perplexities, its anti-type convolutions. Aye, place thy life's highest, best and most exalted mentality in its scrutiny. Yea, call to thy aid the grandest genius which has ever strode upon our mundane sphere. Yea, even bring a multitude of geniuses, and yet, forsooth, the combined intellect of this brainy legion can ne'er tell the wondrous limit of its power. True, in life a brain's labyrinthian mellow cast has welled in force so marvelously over and beyond its strange and petty size as to suggest that its each and every cell has connected itself with the ponderous and the infinite. Nay, I'll tell thee, and tell thee only too feebly, that this soft, entwined orb has been the dwelling of men whose thoughts have decided the earthly destiny of millions of its fellow creatures, and whose action seem to shake the frame of this globe. E'en so has it been the dwelling place of men who brought glorious knowledge, the rarest and sweetest comfort, the greatest and most splendid advancement to millions in the past and to millions yet to come. Still more hath this matrix held the souls of men who have soothed, blessed and given glorious hope to a sad and needful world. Yea, above all these, infinitely above all these has there welled within its etiolate convolutions every moiety of good or evil that has been shown in the worlds of trin

ulated souls. Yea, it has borne within its depths the picture of every action since man's creation. Yea, 'tis the inconceivable, the incomprehensible, the connection of the finite with the infinite, of the impotent with the omnipotent. Now, then, here let me speak of this brain's function-mind. Mind to me doth seem a welling force between two eternities. The eternity that it came from in the past which brought it to earth and made it for a present life, and, we cannot think, nay, we reverentially trust, that we will never think that it can ever be lost in the future eternity to come. It is my hope, my inward belief, that it is the only indestructible force evolved in the making of the universe. Mind belongs to the living, whether in the past, present or future. Mind is our maker, God's first law, the real measure of materiality, the real and truest force of life. Perchance the force of all eternity. Mind is a force not moved by circumstance, but it hath moved circumstance e'er man was created. For it is that teeming power which stops not with time, dies not with death, but is an immortality, which dwells in space and accompanies life. 'Tis the guiding element of the starry spheres of heaven, the ruler of atoms, the welling power of our teeming earth. Mind is everywhere, mind is the creator, mind is the incarnation of truth-where'er may be its abode. Mind is the most improvable and expansive thing given to man, or that can be conceived of by man, its abode the brain-is a mass of function, the profundity of activity. It hath an infinity of office, a ponderous power, wherein millions and millions of cells exist. Each cell hath within it an absolute power of purpose. Yea, to me it is true-mind is greater than universe, its action and condition hath not limit, its comprehension measureless, its force has ne'er been known, for neither time nor eternity can fathom it. Yea, 'tis the voice of God, which shakes the ether of the worlds and in tremulous atoms floats eternally in the embrace of time to the unknown limits of omnipotence. For it doth not belong to Yea, it is a growing and never exhaustless force.

man

I may err, I may grope, but it is with divinity of feeling when I say, I believe mind lived and thrived before man was born. Yea, from the beginning it was a perfected element. Mind

hath forever been the same, and I am sure that thus will it ever remain. 'Tis a part of God, 'tis of God. God gave it to man; God carries it back to eternity. Yea, mind to me is the essence of existence, the one and only indivisible, the one and only omniscient, the one and the only and ever omnipresent. Yea, it is to me as omnipotence. Man's brain, this powerful mass, this twisted shell, this convoluted instrument; yea, the earthly templed home of mind can only be improved. Nay, thou mayest talk with all thy logic, bring ponderous arguments and the profundity of intellect, still I would tell thee how canst thou make perfection in mind when aught else than perfection bides not in it. Yea, how canst thou make mind aught else than mind. Gods, in my quivering soul, I do but think that mind is but the completed force, the perfected element, creation's one indivisible, indestructible and eternally the same. But in this poor brain of man 'tis but the strife of nature to place a universe within the realms of a multi-celled brain. No, no mind is perfect, hath never been made, 'twas ne'er born-but in its use it adapts its God-given self to its humble, brainy abode.

Perchance I may tire thee, but then, let us to the pith and purpose speak of some other functions of this brain. Why, then, let us slowly study this will, the powered denizen of earthly action. Thus, I say, let us slowly study what is will. Will is that power to choose, to select, to prefer. Volition is but the act of willing, or put it plainer still, the will in action. Thus far it is well, thus far it is plain. Now, then, doth it not come in this power to choose and select a mind's decree, a mind's command, a mind's discretive pleasure? Just so, then, what is action? Thus, then, this will is that power which permits our mind to act. Action is but a process, a condition of action or movement. True, it is the start of power. Now, then, this power to choose is but the process of making or selecting by way of preference from two or more things presenting themselves to the mind. Power is the faculty of doing, perceiving, or that which produces effect in both a physical and moral way. Thus, then, are we not told that the will in its healthy way acts by the stimulant of a suggestion or excitation conveyed to the brain. Then this will acts as a function to

the brain under these conditions. Here comes a crowd of ideas to the mind, this mind is permitted or forced by the intention acting through the suggestion or excitation of these ideas--thus, then, under action the will receives or rejects such ideas as it sees fit or proper. Yes, thus thou hast seen that the will then is the sole and only determining element of power of judgment which thy mind. has. Yea, it is the acting power of the ruler of man's soul and thus it becomes that in this mind or soul the only thing which most deeply involves it in its integrity is its will. Yea, the only thing dangerous to the mind in its broadest sphere is the will. Aye, the only thing which can menace in its entirety and that is the entire function of the brain, is the will.

This power, this marvel of will moulds the man, moulds the very world to his necessities. Of all the blessings e'er given to man by God there is naught which soul can suggest better than a heathy will. I know and in my inmost I know and in my inmost soul do think that if there ever was a pictured something which was the incarnation of the Ruler, that one thing is will. Aye, 'tis a function, the very personification of effect and true it is that as it lives and abides in the wonder working brain of man, it is the only element which cannot be forced. It doth seem strange, nay, forsooth, almost incomprehensible, nay, a monstrous contradiction that it matters not what a man may know, if the will determines his mental actions, his mind's virtue and worth can be made as naught as this will decrees. Nature gives the will and will makes the man. Yea, the virtue of a will is the working virtue of the mind. Nay, then, forsooth, take thou this errant mind. Let but itself be a diseased thing, what, then, cannot become its errant action. This will, the acting power of the brain, which, forsooth, gives us the power to select, to choose and to prefer, is simply, that force which is the savior of a soul, the grouper, the selector, the winnower of every errant thought which dwells in the soul of man; back into the deep recesses of man's brain lie his passions; yea, there, too, lie the recorded instances of a wondrous and monstrous past. Now, then, this will, this guardian angel of the mind, is that which sifts. the wayward act, analyzes or rejects, or selects.

and purifies the varied suggestion of mentality into the sanity of action.

This will is perhaps diseased, and when it becomes diseased we find that the mind's balancing power, the very heart of judgment, its strong force of discretion, the harmonizing power of the soul, is gone. Thus, then, in its erratic action there is impulse, or no will, and errant passions becomes the rulers of the brain. Reason is dethroned and blind impulse sways the soul in passions' turgid track, making it well in crime, suicide and murder. Yea, make this man of sick will a creature and slave to drink, theft, lewdness, blasphemy, and dire and hideous crimes. Heavens, it is too true-does not this will in health hold and bind in virtuous sway every passion? Let it become a sickly thing and passions and crime in every form are an easy result. Nay, then, take thy poor neurasthenic, this man whose brain is enfeebled and helpless with a tottering will. Doth there not result all the varied phases of indecision, tortured thought and doubt; yea, all the woeful dreams of dread and fear, the agony of impulsive actions, blind unreasoning? Yea, every pitiful phase of a diseased will. Down, down deep into the depravity of degeneracy, down deep into that state when mind but becomes a mimic play.

Nay, in truth a perfection of will is ever the perfection of a soul. Thou canst go down the varied line of all action in thy sane and in thy insane, study the depths of history, study every conceivable story coming from the dark and varied history of every act performed in this world, from its earliest period to the immensity and grandeur of the present, and thou canst trace all the calamities, misfortunes, crimes, virtues, worth and excellencies to the play of the will. Yea, it is a truth profound, magnificent and immense to think of. The will is this world's controller and ruler. Yea, the will to man is his all and everything. It is the mind's stamp of its finiteness, the stamp which moulds an earthly soul for its future state and has its habitat upon this earth and ne'er was made for heaven. For heaven is that place of supreme happiness, perfect felicity, absolute bliss. Supreme doth mean the highest, greatest and most exalted of happiness and is but the bliss and blessedness of a soul. Nay, then, forgive me if I err, but

true it is that a soul which hath not the necessity to will has arrived at the zenith of mental action. Hence if there be such a place as. heaven, and this place is where we have the most exalted happiness, then thus do I argue the most exalted happiness is an unconscious and wondrous flow of satisfaction, where, in this case, the grandeurs and beauties of a heaven would but fill this soul with the transcendent glow of utter contentment, and in utter contentment there is never want, desire, preferment or choice; for, if but want, desire, preferment or choice exist they must be irritant. But a supreme bliss of soul means supreme contentment, and supreme contentment means an absolute wish for naught else than itself; hence there is no necessity for using a will.

'Tis an old saying that "He who does not reason is a slave." This, perchance, might once have been true, but to me 'tis poorly said. For it would have been more truthful that he who doth not reason must be an idiot. For an idiot hath not brain to reason with. What, then, is reason? Reason is that power which gives the mind the gift to determine the virtue of an opinion, to form an impartial ground of conclusion, an intelligent account or explanation or motive for an action, which obtains a more or less decisive proof from opinion. To me the more I think, the more it doth seem that the virtue of a mind depends upon its balance. And doubt it not, this balance depends upon the virtue of a will. It is my earnest conviction, nor can I see by what process we can disprove it, that the most powerful intellect, the most profound mind is to be found in that brain freest from uncontrolled instinct and most perfect in will. Yea, go down the scale and study it well and thou wilt find that the poorest of God's mentally endowed creatures, the hideous pauper of mentality, the idiot, shows itself in striking and marvelous force.

In proportion to the absence of a will, intellect is gone and with it reason, too. Now, then, reason acts upon the past. "All reasoning is retrospect. It consists in the application of facts and principles previously known." So says Foster. Reason has its basis in memory, and this memory doth seem to me to be the product of ancestral crystallization of experience. Nay, it needs not in my hum

ble opinion any ponderous nor extensive defense to prove that in the variations of will do we receive the variations of reason. Nay, the perfection of reason is not dependent upon aught else than the organ from which it comes. Let us take the Mystic, that reasoning lunatic of the frenzied and diseased will. There never was made a better reason than when he reasons and when thou takest into consideration the present condition of the brain, that is, the premises from which it came, his reason is as perfect as it is in the perfect brain, for he but argues from pure delusion, and these delusions are realities to him. Hence the perfection of his reason is as perfect in its course and method as it is in the sane. But delusion marks its action. Accurate reason, the proper determination of an opinion, the perfection of truth, efficient cause and all cannot be anything else than a pure matter of mental health. Aye, if thou wouldst tell me what mind is truly healthful at every period in its mentality, I can guarantee that I can tell thee the purity of its will and reason. Nay, I cannot believe that reason ever guided will. For deep down in my mind, I honestly believe that thou canst not separate reason from will. What part of reason will is I know not; but it is an eternal truth that when thy brain is crowded with a multitude of ideas, it hath the capacity to think or reject such ideas as it sees fit. This capacity to fix or reject these ideas to me implies the power which covers reason, for reason hath its basis essentially in memory, that is, in the application of facts and principles previously known. Thus I think 'tis past experience and, indeed, I must think 'tis ancestral experience. Now, a fixed idea becomes an irritant, and the brain's will acts in response, receiving or rejecting such ideas as it prefers. Thou canst not separate this thy reason from this thy will. They are to me one and the same force, and both only act best when this will is in perfection. All men are instructed more by experience than by reason, accurate reason, just reason is forever the product of a well-balanced mind.

Now, then, what avails reason in thy neurasthenic degenerate, thy nervously exhausted. brain, beset with the indecision of doubt? Reason here is its woe and curse; yet, forsooth, reason in its texture is perfect. But an imperfect will permits reason, at the same