TORCH
VOL. 2.
SÖUL
ïiÙJ
R eason .
SILVERTON, OREGON, THURSDAY, JANUARY 2Ü, 1898.
NO. 12.
f o r the Torch of Reason.
until God breathed into her some time repeatedly staid and eventual- early biologist saw behind the var-
part of a woman’s soul.
ly driven out by building a temple ious manifestations of life a strange
Ihe whole histooy of ancient to Apollo or by the dictator driving and mysterious ‘“ life principle”,
By G race E. G ra b e r.
philosophy, from 1 hales down, is a nail in the temple already built. He decided that this something
''¡ T l^ v X !m X K w ^ p * n g L 'e*'l^ O? L 'na88O, miXt.',re Of m-v8ticism> No d',ubl priests discouraicd the called life would, when the notion
Let not one tear of grief lx? shed—
of life concepts into a conglomera- use of medicine, for should it pos- prompted it, animate the most life-
8m sleeping, grandly sleeping.
tion
of ideas. This mental tritura- ( sess virtue they would be robbed of less matter. Amusing
are the
.
ig arc
me many
uiany
The sleep supreme, known not in life — tion has been going on ever since, their business.
No more prayers experiments which the empirical
With it dies every sorrow—
Whv should you mock the calm with and such concoctions as have been would be paid for by sick believers. investigator used to prove the spon­
strife?
turned out for us—in fact, we have
However, to the Christian church taneity theory.
You’ll join me on the morrow.
been doped almost to death! \\ rite must be given the credit for having
Today the microscope has shown
A Yo^r'nmVrow’B^ureVy^re^phig1 ^earS* upon the doors of your insane asy- built and established the first hos- us the secrets of protoplasm and
Toward the evening of your fears,
lums, “ Builded in honor of mysti- pitals, and to the church today we the modern biologist finds daily
When you’ll l>e grandly sleeping.
cism.'
Carve upon the corner- must give the credit of the first substantiation of the well known
I'd have no granite shaft so grand,
stones of your nunneries and mon- place in work intended to help the law, “no life hut.from prior life.”
With epitaphs or phrases;
asteries, “Builded in honor of poor, sick and needy. But to offset The barrier between organized ami
We all should leave behind, for man,
Kind deeds to sing our praises.
mysticism.” Upon the portals of this the same church has to its dis- unorganized, between living organ-
We’re like a bubble, held by bands
those churches which have not yet credit the retaining that mysticism isms and inorganic matter, is
Of most uncertain keeping;
Witches broken down and vitality is seen
We’re but the dust, blown from the awakened to the demand f« r aprao- regarding evil spirits.
sands—
tical, humane religion, write these were persons possessed of the devil, as a universal property of matter,
We come, we go, we’re sleeping.
'same words, “ Builded in honor of and thousands of them were burn- In spite of Mr. Spencer’s conclusion
mysticism.’
ed at the stake upon bible author- that life is too profound a matter
Bohemian Evening No. VII. .
But to particularize a moment as ity. This horrible practice even for solution, we sec Haeckel and
Io the influence of mysticism upon reached the shores of the United others of the Germans, Cope, whose
BY C. ELTON BLANCHARD.
s< it nee, let me, as a student of med- States, and we have the shame of recent death we lament, and others
III. MYSTICISM IN SCIENCE.
• icine, give you some ’facts that I the Salem Witchcraft. If any one of the Americans, Binet and others
Chemistry was thought to have have observed. The primitive idea possessed a devil it was the leaders of the French, all showing us that
originated in Egypt, and some writ­ of sickness was that some mvsteri- of this movement, the Rev. Cotton Herbert Spencer’s unknowable is
ous evil had entered the body which Mather not excepted.
only partially unknown, and not
ers say that “chem” meant dark, only the help of the heavenly plan-
When the science of i.edicine an unknowable. These men say,
mysterious. Alchemy was prohab- ets could drive away. The sick, on-e took a start for true growth, “There is no unknowable; it is only
ly introduced into Europe by the ' therefore, sought the help of the even then mysticism would not let the unknown.”
Arabs, then followed that long E°dh through the intercession of the it alone. Bleeding to the point of But the empiric, whose brain is
hunt for the “universal solvent” Pr,ests- The New Testament tells exhaustion was a favorite remedy still under the spell of mysticism,
which would resolve everything in- us many incidents which show how for all physical ills. No doubt if inquires, “ What is life? How did
G
. L>ng ^ is idea clung to human disease was a something in the we get even non-sentient life, to
elixir f thought. P ter, Paul and others blood it would come away with the say nothing of sentient organisms,
life” and the “philosopher’s stone” had this mystic power. Paul was blood, and thus the patient would from dead matter?” Such ques-
were objects of special search, and, especially strong in curative ahil- be rid of it. This was good reas- tions may he in the minds of per­
metaphorically speaking, many peo- ity. It is written that at one time oning, surely! From anotherquar- sons present. The province of my
pie are still looking for them. But the-v had only to borrow his pocket ter took birth the notion that drug subject will not permit a discussion
all this searching and experiment- handkerchief or apron (Acts xix.). power was a mystery, and the high of this topic, but as a suggestion,
ing led to the discovery of many of Dmching these to the suffering potency theory grew and flourished allow me one word. The phenom­
nature’s laws. Yet as late as the I one8> the incurable trouble vanish- like a green bay tree. Happily to­ enon of organized life appears if
middle centuries the great minds ed> leaving the pool, afflicted bodies day the schools <»f medicine are fast conditions are right, and only as
ridding themselves of mysticism, specialized forms of the life which
like Bacon—that is, Francis Bacon as 8ood as new
When at last H ippocrates, in the and as they do so they find that belongs to all elementary matter,—
— Luther, Spinoza and Liebnitz be
lieved in the “philosopher’s stone”. Lfth century B. C., did cast off the science is hut the revelation of a to the water in the streams and the
Thus we see how from alchemy influence of the primitive mysti- universal system of law.
rocks in the fields.
came the science of chemistry. Yet c’8In, ’ Le slightest ray of truth be-
In the science of biology and its
That sentient life came from the
who can say that we really know of g»n to shine. Yet from his time kindred studies, we observe the non-sentient, all men of science
seventy-one elements?
Perhaps to
third century A. D. no one work of magic. The trailings of agree. What the conditions were,
their atoms are but different forms thought of studying a human skel- this enemy are still to he seen. We whether those conditions exist to-
<»f crystalization of the ultimate pton. \\ e have records of the ad- find men who have minds still day or ever will exist again in the
units of “world stuff” called by v’ce
scholars to students, to vis- clouded by the mystic of dualism history of this planet, is a subject
Liebnitz the “monad”. Not until it Alexandria, where they could see and who limit their thought, thus for further investigation. Yet in
microscopes show us the form of
a real human skeleton. settling all doubts. 1 his is a very the “inoner” we find our first mo-
the atom can we say that no truth
Tl,e mysterious ideas of the res- popular way of surrender. We ther,the Adam and Eve of science,
was in the theory of the early al- urrection prevented the science of hear it said, “Oh, I can’t under- The mor.er will one day come uu-
chemists. In philosophy the mys- anatomy from developing for many stand that and I don’t want to try.” der the analysis of improved m i-
tic began in metaphysics. The mys- centuries. The church could not Or, “I can trace life to the single croscopes and we will know what
teries of the Greeks probably came permit so great a wrong against a cell, and there I stop. The cell chemical affinity causes the won-
frorn Egypt or India. The older departed spirit as that it should re- holds the hidden secret of life.”
derful formation of the pseudopo-
hfK)ks of the bible show that the turn when the trump should sound
Another mist-cloud which mysti- dia, those exer-ehanging protrus-
Jews had no idea of soul transmi- and find its house of clay cut to hits cism has held before the eyes of ions from the body of the minute
gfation at that time. In contact Ly inquisitive medical students.
science is the theory of spontane- animal. We will then know what
with Greek thought, many fanciful
Pliny tells us that no physician ous generation of life, or spontan- is the chemistry of feeling, and last
ideas came into existence. Here is could be found in Rome for six or city. The early investigators pro- —the crowning work of science—
°ne; When a woman had a soul seven centuries, and Julius Csesar ceded along empirical lines, and it the chemistry of thought.
that had formerly been that of a was the first to recognize the science is confessed, with regret, that such
It is true we can call the Ameha
man, she could not bear children of medicine. Pestilence was at this is more or less the case today. The our first mother, and if all life be
Sleeping.
Ü
i
I