It is presumed that every reader of these pages has some knowledgeof this subject, either by reading the “Manual of Psychometry”or otherwise, and has at least read the “Introduction to the Journalof Man” on our cover pages.
It is not of the directly practical bearings of Psychometry that Iwould speak at present, but of its imperial rank among sciences,entitling it to the post of honor.
In all human affairs, that takes the highest rank which has thegreatest controlling and guiding power. The king, the statesman,the hero, the saintly founder of a religion, the philosopher thatguides the course of human thought, and the scientist who gives usa greater command of nature, are the men whom we honor as theministers of destiny.
When we speak of science, we accord the highest rank to thatwhich gives the greatest comprehension of the world as it is—of itspast and of its future. Geology and astronomy are the scienceswhich reach out into the illimitable alike in the present and past.Biology will do the same for the world of life when biology iscompleted by a knowledge of the centre of all life, the brain. Butin its present acephalous condition it is but a fragment of science—aheadless corpse, unfit to rank among complete sciences. Theologyclaims the highest rank of all, but based as it has been on the conceptionscurrent in the dark ages, it has become, in the light ofmodern science, a crumbling ruin. Does psychometry compare withastronomy and geology in its scientific rank, or does it compare withthe acephalous biology, which occupies all medical colleges?
It compares with neither. Like astronomy, it borders on thelimitless; like geology, it reaches into the vast, undefined past; andlike biology, it comprehends all life science; but unlike each, it hasno limitation to any sphere. It is equally at home with living formsand with dead matter—equally at home in the humbler spheres ofhuman life and human infirmity, and in the higher spheres of thespirit world, which we call heaven. It grasps all of biology, all ofhistory, all of geology and astronomy, and far more thantelescopes have revealed. It has no parallel in any science, fo