CHAPTER XXIX.
BEWARE OF BIOLOGY, THE SCIENCE OF THE LIFE OF MAN.
( The old man relates a story as an object lesson.)
" But you have not lived up to the promise; you have evaded
part of the bargain," I continued. " While you have certainly
performed some curious experiments in physics which seem to
be unique, yet, I am only an amateur in science, and your
hydrostatic illustrations may be repetitions of investigations
already recorded, that have escaped the attention of the scientific gentlemen to
whom I have hitherto applied."
" Man's mind is a creature of doubts and questions," he
observed. " Answer one query, and others rise. His inner self
is never satisfied, and you are not to blame for wishing for a sign, as all
self-conscious conditions of your former existence compel.
Now that I have brushed aside the more prominent questionings,
you insist upon those omitted, and appeal to me to "- he hesitated.
To what?" I asked, curious to see if he had intuitively
grasped my unspoken sentence.
" To exhibit to you your own brain," he replied.
" That is it exactly," I said; " you promised it, and you shall
be held strictly to your bargain. You agreed to show me my
own brain, and it seems evident that you have purposely evaded
the promise."
" That I have made the promise and deferred its completion
can not be denied, but not by reason of an inability to fulfill the contract. I
will admit that I purposely deferred the exhibition, hoping on your own account
that you, would forget the hasty promise. You would better release me from the
promise; you do not know what you ask."
" I believe that I ask more than you can perform," I answered,
" and that you know it."
( The reader is invited to skip this chapter of horrors.- J. U. L. )
" Let me give you a history," he said, " and then perhaps you
will relent. Listen. A man once became involved in the study of anatomy. It led
him to destruction. He commenced the study in order to learn a profession; he
hoped to become a physician. Materia medica, pharmacy, chemistry, enticed him at
first, but after a time presented no charms. He was a dull student in much that
men usually consider essential to the practice of medicine. He was not fitted to
be a physician. Gradually he became absorbed in two branches, physiology and
anatomy. Within his mental self a latent something developed that neither
himself nor his friends had suspected. This was an increasing desire for
knowledge concerning the human body. The insatiable craving for anatomy grew
upon him, and as it did so other sections of medicine were neglected. Gradually
he lost sight of his professional object; he dropped chemistry, materia inedica,
pharmacy, and at last, morbidly lived only in the aforenamed two branches.
" His first visit to the dissecting room was disagreeable. The odor of
putrid flesh, the sight of the mutilated bodies repulsed him. When first his
hand, warm in life, touched the clammy flesh of a corpse, he shuddered. Then
when his fingers came in contact with the viscera of a cadaver, that of a little
child, he cried out in horror. The demonstrator of anatomy urged him on; he
finally was induced to dissect part of the infant. The reflex action on his
sensitive mind first stunned, and then warped his senses. His companions had to
lead him from the room. `Wash it off, wash it off,' he repeated, trying to throw
his hand from his person.
`Horrid, horrible, unclean.
The child is yet before me,' he insisted. Then he went into a fever and
raved. `Some mother will meet me on the street and curse me,' he cried. "
That hand is red with the blood of my darling ; it has desecrated the innocent
dead, and mutilated that which is most precious to a mother." Take the hand
away, wash it,' he shouted. `The mother curses me; she demands retribution.
Better that a man be dead than cursed by a mother whose child has been
desecrated.' So the unfortunate being raved, dreaming all manner of horrid
imaginings. But at last he recovered, a different man. He returned voluntarily
to the dissecting-room, and wrapped himself in the uncouth work.
Nothing in connection with corpse-mutilation was now offensive or unclean. He
threw aside his other studies, he became a slave possessed of one idea. He
scarcely took time to dine respectably; indeed, he often ate his lunch in the
dissecting-room. The blood of a child was again and again on his fingers; it
mattered not, he did not take the trouble to wash it off. `The liver of man is
not more sacred than the liver of a hog,' he argued; `the flesh of a man is the
same as other forms of animal food. When a person dies the vital heat escapes,
consciousness is dissipated, and the cold, rigid remains are only animal.
Consciousness and life are all that is of man-one is force, the other matter;
when man dies both perish and are dissipated.' His friends perceived his
fondness for dissection, and argued with him again, endeavoring now to overcome
his infatuation; he repelled them. ` I learned in my vision,' he said, referring
to his fever, `that Pope was right in saying that the " proper study of
mankind is man "; I care nothing for your priestly superstitions concerning
the dead. These fables are the invention of designing churchmen who live on the
superstitions of the ignorant. I am an infidel, and believe in no spirit
intangible; that which can be seen, felt, and weighed is, all else is not. Life
is simply a sensation. All beyond is chimerical, less than fantastic, believed
in only by dupes and weak-minded, credulous tools of knaves, or creatures of
blind superstition.' He carried the finely articulated, bleached skull of a
cadaver to his room, and placed it beside a marble statue that was a valued
heirloom, the model of Venus of Milo. `Both are lime compounds,' he cynically
observed, ` neither is better than the other.' His friends protested. `Your
superstitious education is at fault,' he answered; `you mentally clothe one of
these objects in a quality it does not deserve, and the thought creates a
pleasant emotion. The other, equally as pure, reminds you of the grave that you
fear, and you shudder.
These mental pulsations are artificial, both being either
survivals of superstition, or creations of your own mind. The lime in the skull
is now as inanimate as that of the statue; neither object is responsible for its
form, neither is unclean. To me, the delicate configuration, the exact
articulation, the perfect adaptation for the office it originally filled, makes
each bone of this skull a thing of beauty, an object of admiration. As a whole,
it gives me pleasure to think of this wonderful, exquisitely arranged piece of
mechanism. The statue you admire is in every respect outrivaled by the skull,
and I have placed the two together because it pleases me to demonstrate that
man's most artistic creation is far inferior to material man. Throw aside your
sentimental prejudices, and join with me in the admiration of this thing of
beauty;' and he toyed with the skull as if it were a work of art. So he argued,
and arguing passed from bone to bone, and from organ to organ. He filled his
room with abnormal fragments of the human body, and surrounded himself with jars
of preserved anatomical specimens. His friends fled in disgust, and he smiled,
glad to be alone with his ghastly subjects. He was infatuated in one of the
alcoves of science."
The old man paused.
" Shall I proceed?" he asked.
" Yes," I said, but involuntarily moved my chair back, for I began
again to be afraid of the speaker.
" At last this scientific man had mastered all that was known concerning
physiology and anatomy. He learned by heart the wording of great volumes devoted
to these subjects. The human frame became to him as an open book. He knew the
articulation of every muscle, could name a bone from a mere fragment. The
microscope ceased to be an object of interest, the secrets of pathology and
physiology had been mastered. Then, unconsciously, he was infected by another
tendency ; a new thought was destined to dominate his brain. `What is it that
animates this frame? What lies inside to give it life?' He became enthused
again: `The dead body, to which I have given my time, is not the conscious part
of man,' he said to himself; `I must find this thing of life within; I have been
only a butcher of the dead. My knowledge is superficial."'
Again the old man hesitated and looked at me inquiringly.
" Shall I proceed?" he repeated.
I was possessed by horror, but yet fascinated, and answered ,determinedly:
" Go on."
" Beware," he added, " beware of the Science of Life."
Pleadingly he looked at me.
" Go on," I commanded.
He continued:
" With the cunning of a madman, this person of profound learning, led from
the innocence of ignorance to the heartlessness of advanced biological science,
secretly planned to seek the vital forces. ` I must begin with a child, for the
life essence shows its first manifestations in children,' he reasoned. He moved
to an unfrequented locality, discharged his servants, and notified his former
friends that visitors were unwelcome. He had determined that no interruption to
his work should occur. This course was unnecessary, however, for now he had
neither friends nor visitors. He employed carpenters and artisans, and perfected
a series of mechanical tables, beautiful examples of automatic mechanism. From
the inner room of that house no cry could be heard by persons outside.
[ It will be seen, by referring to the epilogue, that Mr. Drury agreed to
mutilate part of the book. This I have gladly done, excising the heart-rending
passages that follow. To use the words of Prof. Venable, they do not "
comport with the general delicacy of the book.” J. U. I,.]
" Hold, old man, cease," I cried aghast; " I have had enough of
this. You trifle with me, demon; I have not asked for nightmare stories,
heart-curdling accounts of maniacal investigators, who madly pursue their
revolting calling, and discredit the name of science."
" You asked to see your own brain," he replied.
" And have been given a terrible story instead," I retorted.
" So men perverted, misconstruing the aim of science, answer the cry of
humanity," he said. " One by one the cherished treasures of
Christianity have been stolen from the faithful. What, to the mother, can
replace the babe that has been lost?”
" The next world," I answered, " offers a comfort."
" Bah," he said; " does not another searcher in that same science
field tell the mother that there is no personal hereafter, that she will never
see her babe again ? One man of science steals the body, another man of science
takes away the soul, the third annihilates heaven; they go like pestilence and
famine, hand in hand, subsisting on all that craving humanity considers sacred,
and offering no tangible return beyond a materialistic present. This same
science that seems to be doing so much for humanity will continue to elevate
so-called material civilization until, as the yeast ferment is smothered in its
own excretion, so will science-thought create conditions to blot itself from
existence, and destroy the civilization it creates. Science is heartless,
notwithstanding the personal purity of the majority of her helpless votaries.
She is a thief, not of ordinary riches, but of treasures that can not be
replaced. Before science provings the love of a mother perishes, the hope of
immortality is annihilated. Beware of materialism, the end of the science of
man. Beware of the beginning of biological inquiry, for he who commences, can
not foresee the termination. I say to you in candor, no man ever engaged in the
part of science lore that questions the life essence, realizing the possible end
of his investigations. The insidious servant becomes a tyrannical master; the
housebreaker is innocent, the horse thief guiltless in comparison. Science
thought begins in the brain of man; science provings end all things with the end
of the material brain of man. Beware of your own brain."
" I have no fear," I replied, " that I will ever be led to
disturb the creeds of the faithful, and I will not be diverted. I demand to see
my brain."
" Your demand shall now be fulfilled; you have been warned of the return
that may follow the commencement of this study; you force the issue; my
responsibility ceases. No man of science realized the end when he began to
investigate his throbbing brain, and the end of the fabric that science is
weaving for man rests in the hidden future. The story I have related is a true
one, as thousands of faithful men who unconsciously have been led into
infidelity have experienced; and as the faithful followers of sacred teachings
can also perceive, who recognize that their religion and the hope of heaven is
slipping away beneath the steady inroad of the heartless materialistic
investigator, who clothes himself in the garb of science."
Rising abruptly from his chair, he grasped my hand. " You shall see your
brain, man; come."