Part 14 (1/2)
CHAPTER XIV.
HAS MAN DEGENERATED?
The Advent of Man--Care of the Stock Raiser--Mental Degeneration Makes It Unpleasant for an Original Thinker--Original Thinkers of the Ancients--Methods of Healing--Failure of Allopathy--Primitive Man--Evidences of Prehistoric Man--Mental Dwarf.a.ge.
THE ADVENT OF MAN.
The exact time when man's foot appeared on the earth, no record shows. A knowledge of his advent might be profitable. The unwritten history of the human races with the genius or lack of genius, might to us be an open book of knowledge. As it is not supposable that the mind of man has just become observingly active in the last few centuries, absolute evidence of purer and deeper reason than we have been able to present, stand recorded on the faces of many valuable ”lost arts” which we have never been able to equal. Is it not very reasonable to suppose that the powers of mind have wonderfully degenerated from some cause?
CARE OF THE STOCK RAISER.
The stock raiser carefully preserves the best and most healthy of the males and females of his flocks and herds for breeding purposes, that their offspring might be healthy and well developed, for the purposes for which he raises them. As a result he raises stock from the poultry house up, with marked improvement in form, strength and usefulness.
Should he be foolish enough to kill off all the healthy and well developed males as they appear in his herds of cattle and other stock, for one or two centuries, would any one with average intelligence suppose that the standard of animals would or could be kept up, by breeding from the unfortunate stock, that had been pierced through the lungs while fighting with more powerful animals. If for breeding purposes he would save calves, colts, lambs, pigs, goats or any other young males to breed from, that had had a leg frozen off, one or both eyes plucked out, necks and ears torn by panthers, what would you think of the man's sanity?
On this line we would ask what has been the procedure of all nations?
Has it not been to select the strong and healthy males, drive them out to the field of battle, destroy a million or more of the strongest men, as our war of the sixties shows. Since that war closed the fathers of our children are mainly the crippled, worn out, and degenerated physical wrecks, with the a.s.sistance of the refused, who for lack of physical ability were barred from entering the United States' service. Such physical and mental wrecks are the fathers of the children born during the last thirty years. Every healthy young lady who married and became a mother after the early sixties, had to select a husband from a war or hereditary wreck. From that degenerated stock of human beings our asylums are filled, and the beams of the gallows pulled down by the weight of the bodies of those mental dwarfs. Run this train of reason back for a few hundred or thousand of years,--this degenerating force, bearing upon the offspring, and is it a wonder that we have physical and mental wrecks all over the country?
MENTAL DEGENERATION MAKES IT UNPLEASANT FOR THE ORIGINAL THINKER.
Now if we have been mentally degenerating, killing our best men back for a few thousand years time, and still have a few left who are fairly good reasoners, what was their mental powers then, compared with now? They could think from native ability; we only through acquired ability by our methods of education. Should an original thinker occasionally appear from the crippled and maimed, he will have much that is unpleasant to contend with, unless he is generous enough to credit the cause to an effect produced by the lack of mental and physical forces in the sires just described. A man or woman who is able to reason, cannot afford to wear out his or her physical and mental forces by spending time in tiresome discussions with such blank ma.s.ses, who are very fortunate to have intelligence enough to make a living under the methods that require the least mental action.
It would not be manly nor lady like to allow a feeling of combattiveness to arise and spend your forces on such persons. Pre-natal causes have dropped them where they are, and a philosopher knows he must submit to the conditions, and he is sorrowful in place of vengeful and vindicative, and all that is left for him to do is to trim his lamps and let the lights defend themselves.
ORIGINAL THINKERS OF THE ANCIENTS.
On this line we have much to think of. Anciently they did think: Great minds existed then, as is evidenced by the architecture displayed in constructing temples and pyramids. As in philosophy, chemistry, and mathematics, they stand to-day as living facts of their intelligence. In some ways we are equal and even surpa.s.s the ancients. Before the establishment of religious and political governments, national and tribal creeds, to sustain which the powerful minds and bodies of thousands and millions have been slain and their wise councils prohibited by death. Reason says under the circ.u.mstances we must kindly make and do the best we can in our day and time. No doubt their religion was better than ours, before they began to fight about their G.o.ds and governments.
METHODS OF HEALING.
Some evidence crops out now and then that their methods of healing were natural and wisely applied, and crowned with good results. As far as history speaks of the ancient healing arts they were logical, philosophical, good in results and harmless. It is true enough that we have great systems of chemistry that are useful in the mechanical arts, but very limited in their uses in the healing arts. In fact, a very great per cent of the gray-haired philosophers of all medical schools, unhesitatingly a.s.sert that the world would be better off without them.
These conclusions are sent forth by competent and honest investigators, who have tested all known methods and medicines, and carefully observed the results from a quarter to a half a century. Let us call it ”a trade,” as the use of drugs is not a science.
The author will now say, the health hunter in a majority of cases, when he administers drugs, gives one dose for health and nine for the dollar.
As it becomes necessary to throw off oppressive governments, it becomes just as necessary to throw off other useless customs, without which no subst.i.tute has ever been received.
FAILURE OF ALLOPATHY.
Allopathy, a school of medicine known and fostered by all nations, drove on with its exploring teams; gave up the search, went into camp and builded temples to the G.o.d who purged, puked, perspired, opiated, drank whiskey and other stimulants; destroyed its thousands, ruined nations, established whiskey saloons, opium dens, insane asylums, naked mothers and hungry babies, and still cries aloud, and says: ”Come unto me and I will give you rest. I have opium, morphine, and whiskey by the barrel. I am the G.o.d of all healing knowledge, and want to be so recognized by people and statute. I do not wish to be annoyed by Eclecticism, h.o.m.oeopathy, Christian science, ma.s.sage, Swedish movements, nor Osteopathy. I do not like Osteopathy any better than I do a tiger. It scratches me and tears away all my disciples. I cannot destroy it. It uses neither opium nor whiskey, and it is impossible to catch it asleep.
It scratches us, and has scratched our power out of four states during the last twelve months, with no telling where it will scratch next time.
We must prepare for more war, I have heard from my scouts that on its flag the inscription reads thus: 'No quarters for allopathy in particular and none at all for any schools of medicine farther than surgery, and war to the hilt on three-fourths of that as practiced in the present day. The use of the knife in everything and for everything must be stopped; not by statute law, but through a higher education of the ma.s.ses, which will give them more confidence in nature's ability to heal.'”
PRIMITIVE MAN.