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What the Experts Say
The Art of Access is a refreshingly practical guide to real-world
transparency, explaining the tactics that will help journalists, students, and
everyday citizens get the records to which they’re entitled. My copy is
dog-eared from regular readings and it’s on every new staffer’s desk on
day one at my office.

– Michael Morisy, co-founder, MuckRock

This is the go-to book for any journalist or citizen seeking guidance on
successfully obtaining documents and data from government agencies.
This is an invaluable book upon which to rely if we want to keep our
government accountable and our democracy safe.

– Brant Houston, Professor and Knight Chair of Investigative Reporting,

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and former executive director of
Investigative Reporters and Editors

Prying loose documents from government agencies is a hard-fought battle.

But The Art of Access will prepare you for war. It’s hands down the
quintessential guide to understanding arcane public records laws so
citizens and journalists can prevail in their quest for information.

– Jason Leopold, senior investigative reporter, BuzzFeed News

This clear, concise and timely book provides a step-by-step guide for
turning the overhyped rhetoric of transparency into a much-needed reality.
Cuillier and Davis, both veterans of the access wars, provide journalists
and citizens alike with the keys to unlocking the secrets held in public
records that government officials too often like to stow away.

– Clay Calvert, Professor and Brechner Eminent Scholar in Mass

Communication, University of Florida

The Art of Access is a must read for anyone who wants to understand how
access to government information really happens on the ground. While this
book is of obvious value to journalism students and practitioners,
individuals outside the journalistic community who are new to the art of
getting access to government information will especially benefit from the

8
authors’ thoughtful and eminently readable navigation of the maze.

– Patrice McDermott, executive director, Open Government Partnership

Open government laws such as the Freedom of Information Act provide us

with powerful political tools, but we don’t always know how to use them.
This superb handbook distills the most effective techniques for gaining
access to official records. It will help readers become more skillful
requesters, and better citizens.

– Steven Aftergood, Director, Project on Government Secrecy

9
Brief Contents
1. A Humble Foreword by Tom Blanton
2. Preface
3. About the Authors
4. Chapter 1 Records That Matter: Improve Your Community, Career
and Life
5. Chapter 2 Develop a Document State of Mind
6. Chapter 3 Become an Access Law Expert
7. Chapter 4 The Hunt: Find Records in the Dark
8. Chapter 5 Strategies for Effective Requests
9. Chapter 6 How to Overcome Denials
10. Chapter 7 Going Digital: Strategies for Getting Data
11. Chapter 8 Understand How Public Officials Think
12. Chapter 9 Putting it Together: Writing, Ethics and Paying it Forward
13. Appendix A The Record Album
14. Appendix B FOI Resources
15. Notes
16. Index

10
Detailed Contents
A Humble Foreword by Tom Blanton
Preface
About the Authors
Chapter 1 Records That Matter: Improve Your Community, Career
and Life
Make the World Better
Identify the ‘Performance Gap’
Help Society
Feed the New Information Ecosystem
Advance Your Career
Improve Your Stories
Combat Fake News
Protect Your Legal Hide
Entertain and Amuse
Win Awards
Get a Job—and Keep it
Improve Your Personal Life
Buy a House
Check Out Schools
Background People
Buy Smart
Find Your FBI File
Develop a New Way of Thinking
Try It!
Suggested Links
Chapter 2 Develop a Document State of Mind
Take Charge
Remember All-American Values
Presume it’s Open
Exercise Your Document muscles
Sketch a ‘Circle of Light’
Make FOI First on Fridays
Find Inspiration and Support
Build Strength Through Sharing
Attend a Conference
Get E-Inspired

11
 Find an FOI Friend
Try It!
Suggested Links
Chapter 3 Become an Access Law Expert
Master the Law in Five steps
Learn the Lingo
Identify What Records are Covered
Identify What Agencies are Covered
Identify Exemptions that Allow Secrecy
Identify Your Rights to Appeal
DIP into Alphabet Laws
Health Information: HIPAA
Education Records: FERPA
Driver’s Licenses: DPPA
Access to public meetings
Exercise Your Right to Watch
Question Meeting Red Flags
Tap into Legal Resources
Find Shortcuts
Read the Statutes
Identify Key Court Cases
Ask the Attorney General
Try It!
Suggested Links
Chapter 4 The Hunt: Find Records in the Dark
Explore Document Habitats
Map the Government
‘Take Over’ Agency Territory
Visit Records’ Birth Places
Scour Document Cemeteries
Find records in records
‘Interview’ Your Documents
Request the Requests
Build on Others’ Successes
Surf FOI-Idea Websites
Follow Record Hunters
Tap into Digital Helpers
Go Global
Get Help from Librarians
Mine the Miners

12
 Scan Investigative Stories
Try It!
Suggested Links
Chapter 5 Strategies for Effective Requests
Get in the Zone
Get Personal
Write Effective Letters
Use Sample Request Letters
Choose Your Tone
‘Perfect’ Your Letter
Try Online Tools
Cut Denials off at the Pass
Emphasize Interests, Not Positions
Separate People from the Request
Use Negotiation Jiu Jitsu
Apply Hard Tactics if Necessary
Reactance
Reciprocation
Commitment and Consistency
Social Proof
Liking
Scarcity
Authority
Choosing Soft vs. Hard
Try It!
Suggested Links
Chapter 6 How to Overcome Denials
Understand the Nature of ‘No’
Denials Gone Wild
Prevalence of Denials
Respond to Common Denials
Don’t Get Mad, Get Busy
If the Agency Says …
‘Nah, it’s Our Policy not to Give that Out.’
‘Chirrrp, Chirrrrp.’ (Crickets in the Silence of the Agency’s
Nonresponse.)
‘The Description of What You Requested is Overly Broad.’
‘The Record doesn’t Exist.’
‘We’ll Get Back to You’ (20 Years from Now).
‘Some of the Materials are Exempt from Disclosure, So We

13
 Can’t Give Any of it Out.’
‘Here You Go, With a Few Redactions’ (All Blacked Out)
‘Our Hands are Tied. An Exemption in the Law Forces Us
to Keep it Secret.’
‘We Don’t Have Time to Get that for You.’
‘Where Does it Say in the Law that I Have to Give You that
Record?’
‘You Can Have the Records If You Sign this Contract.’
‘We Don’t Know How You’ll Use it. You Might Not Use it
in a Way We Like.’
‘It is Secret Because of an Exemption (Privacy, National
Security, Personnel, Internal Memos, Under Investigation,
etc.).’
‘That is a Classified Top-Secret Document, so it Can’t Be
Released.’
‘We Can Neither Confirm nor Deny that the Record Exists.’
‘Oh, it’s All Online. Just Go to Our Website.’
‘The Records and Data are Kept by a Private Firm.’
‘We’re Gonna SLAPP You Silly.’
Play Hardball
Go up the Ladder
Rally Allies
Shame the Agency
File More Requests
Publicize it
Appeal
Pursue Mediation
Wield the Independent Club
Take them to Court
Get Legal Advice
Get Money
Get to Know the Court
Write the Complaint and Summons
File Suit
Wait for an Answer
Oral Arguments and Decision
Move for Costs
Plant that Head on a Pike
Try It!
Suggested Links

14
Chapter 7 Going Digital: Strategies for Getting Data
Become Familiar with Data
Examine the Pieces
Learn the Lingo
Opt for Open Data
Get the Database
Get to the Wonk
Get the Record Layout
Get a Printed Sample
Write Data-Specific Letters
Transfer the Data
Counter Cyber-Denials
‘We Can’t Technically Do that’
Proprietary Software
Personal Information
Creation of a ‘New Record’
High Programming Costs
Teach Yourself Database Journalism
Learn Excel
Learn Access
Tap into the CAR Network
Find a Stats Guru
Try It!
Suggested Links
Chapter 8 Understand How Public Officials Think
Comprehend Bureaucratic Culture
The Power of Process
Full-Time vs. Part-Time
Tone from the Top
Identify Agency Constraints
Lack of Resources and Training
Fear of Embarrassment
Parental Controls
Punishment for Disclosure
Walls of Denial
Help them Help You
Be Polite and Respectful
Consider Explaining the Purpose
Be Specific
Avoid Arbitrary Requests

15
 Communicate Often
Try It!
Suggested Links
Chapter 9 Putting it Together: Writing, Ethics and Paying it Forward
Create Great Record-Based Stories
Organize the Piles
Focus on Your Main Point
Avoid Documentese
Humanize
Attribute Clearly
Visualize the Data
Provide the Records Online
Do the Right Thing: FOI Ethics
Exercise Your Right to Know
Exercise Your Right to ‘No’
Avoid Bad Scrapes
Get it Right
Anticipate Public Reaction
People Support Access in the Abstract
People Dig Safety and Accountability
People Don’t Like Privacy Invasion
People Vary
Publicize FOI
Find the News Peg
Hang it on Experts
Make it Relevant
Become an FOI Warrior
Educate the Public
Make Better Law
Apply it Daily
Try It!
Suggested Links
Appendix A The Record Album
Appendix B FOI Resources
Notes
Index

16
Foreword

By Tom Blanton

A Humble Foreword

Governments have created records and used them to run their citizens’
lives for at least three or four millennia now, judging by the chicken
scratches on the cuneiform clay tablets dug up by archaeologists at sites
like Mari, on the border between modern Syria and Iraq. And over
millennia, citizens have agitated for and ultimately won an extraordinary
shift in the power over those records. No Babylonian except one selected
by the king could see the tablets recording kingly actions. But every
citizen of the modern world has a fundamental human right, according to
the Universal Declaration of 1948, for the free exchange of information;
and every citizen of the United States, according to the Freedom of
Information Act of 1966 (amended multiple times since), has an ownership
stake in all the information the government holds.

In the course of human events, this change is revolutionary. King Louis

XIV said famously, “L’état, c’est moi” (“The state, it is I”). A modern
physician would call this the bureaucratic disease; officials believe they
own whatever information exists in government files. But freedom of
information laws—first in Sweden and Finland in 1766 and since then

17
sweeping the world—reverse the equation. The government is only the
custodian; we the citizens own the information. The problem is, how do
we take back what officialdom usurps? How do we fight the natural
tendency of every bureaucracy to hoard its information, control its turf, set
the frames of its policy debate and limit all access to its files?

This book answers those fundamental questions. The authors, David

Cuillier and Charles N. Davis, are the Dalai Lamas of open government.
They bow before the reader and with humor in their eyes explain in direct
and exhortatory prose—written both for journalists and citizens—how to
understand what information government creates and then how to go after
it; how to get it; how to leverage the psychology of officials; and what to
do with that information to make news, empower citizens and change the
world. This is a tall order, fulfilled here to the max.

I filed my first Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request in 1976, the

bicentennial year, when I was a cub reporter for a weekly newspaper in
Minnesota, and I really wish that I had had a copy of this book next to my
typewriter before I let loose with that letter. Some bureaucrats may still be
mad at me, in their retirement. I got a nice story out of that first request; it
even ran in a New York-based national magazine, making a great clip for
job interviews. But if I’d had all the expert advice that the authors walk us
through in this lively and incisive text, I would have gotten a dozen stories,
probably an award or two, and a much earlier appreciation of what has
become my permanent condition: the Cuillier–Davis proverbial “document
state of mind.”

My organization, the National Security Archive, has filed more than

50,000 FOIA requests in the years since we started out in 1985, and I can
testify that this book would have added value to each and every one of
those requests. Let me tell you about one for starters. Some years back, we
heard that there was one particular document at the National Archives of
the United States that more visitors asked for a copy of than any other. We
thought: Sure, the Gettysburg Address?

No.
The original Declaration of Independence?
No.
How about a copy of the actual signed Constitution?
No.
OK, maybe more modern: JFK’s inaugural, “Ask not what your

18
 country can do for you”?
Nope.

The one particular record that visitors asked for more than any other was
the iconic photograph of Elvis Presley meeting with President Richard
Nixon in the White House in December 1970. Remember, this was when
Elvis was still alive, and before the National Enquirer announced such
sightings at every supermarket cash register. But after the barbiturate
overdose, more visitors to the National Archives went away with copies of
the Nixon–Elvis photo than any other artifact of our nation’s history.

So, in our “document state of mind,” we thought: If the president meets

with anybody, there’s a trail. Let’s ask for all the records, in any media,
related in whole or in part to the Nixon–Elvis meeting. Lo and behold, a
few months later, a whole file emerged from the Nixon records at the
National Archives.

The most fun item was the handwritten letter from Elvis to Nixon on
American Airlines stationery, citing his selection as an outstanding young
man of America (Nixon had been one too) and asking for honorary
credentials as a federal narc. (Seriously.)

Then there was the internal White House memo from the appointments
secretary to the chief of staff, telling him that Elvis had showed up at the
White House gate asking for a meeting with the president (let you and me
try that one) and arguing that if Nixon wanted to meet some bright young
people, Elvis would be a good place to start. Out to the side, the chief, H.
R. Haldeman of future Watergate fame, scribbled, “You must be kidding,”
but approved the drop-in!

The file had talking points for the president, encouraging Elvis to produce
a TV special for the war on drugs (suggested theme: “Get high on life”);
notes from the secretaries about what to do with the autographed Elvis
photos he had left behind; and, best of all, the contact sheet from the White
House photographer with all the shots of Nixon and shut-eyed, bleary-
eyed, hung-over Elvis, with the final frame of Nixon admiring the King’s
rhinestone cufflinks.

After millions of downloads, this little package of documents has won us

every Web award in the book, from Yahoo to CoolSiteoftheDay.com to
the BBC to Forbes magazine’s Best of the Web. But a challenger for most

19
downloaded document on our site is the transcript and video of Donald
Rumsfeld chatting with Saddam Hussein in December 1983, telling him no
problem with the chemical warfare as long as he whacks Iran. We got this
one from FOIA requesting as well. And patience. And from following one
of this book’s core recommendations: learning to understand how officials
think.

More recently, our FOIA requests forced open the CIA’s “family
jewels”—the collection of secret memos that CIA officers sent to the new
CIA director in 1974 when he asked what have we done in the past that
broke the law? The replies covered everything from letter-opening to
psychedelic mind-control experiments to collaborating with the Mafia on
assassination attempts. And in 2018 our FOIA lawsuit opened the actual
cables sent by CIA director Gina Haspel from a “black site” prison in
Thailand where she had supervised the waterboarding torture of an Al-
Qaida suspect after 9/11.

The bottom line is what Yosemite Sam pronounced in those ancient

Warner Bros. cartoons: “There’s gold in them thar hills!” This book is the
ultimate prospector’s kit. It will show you how to narrow down the targets,
how to get your pan in the right stream, how to recognize gold flecks from
mica and how to burrow right up into the main vein. You may or may not
get richer, but you’ll definitely make our democracy richer, more robust
and more righteous along the way. More power to you!

Tom Blanton is director of the National Security Archive, an independent,

nongovernmental research institute based at George Washington
University in Washington, D.C., that uses FOIA to collect declassified
government documents and posts them at www.nsarchive.org.

Photo courtesy of Tom Blanton

20
Preface

This is a book about freedom of information, yet it’s about much more
than that.

It’s about gaining access to the records that good reporters need to break
news and that citizens need to know what their government is doing. It’s
about how everyone, not just journalists, can find and use the information
that will improve lives.

Public records, in addition to people sources and firsthand observation, are

essential for good journalism. Documents and data provide the foundation
for reporting that changes the world, and they keep government
accountable.

But it isn’t so easy getting public records sometimes, is it? It can seem
impossible to get a simple police report or school budget, let alone an FBI
record. That’s why we wrote this book. We see the process of acquiring
records like winding through a maze—turning corners, running into
roadblocks, backing up and trying other avenues, until finally reaching the
end and getting what you need. More than ever before, people need to be
skilled in navigating that maze through the art of access.

Shrinking newsroom budgets are stretching journalists thin, making

reporters more reliant on press releases and spoon-fed information.
Government documents lend authority to stories, are verifiable and capture
today’s events for tomorrow’s historians. Unlike officials, records don’t
spin. They combat fake news with verifiable facts.

Government secrecy has ballooned. Federal record request backlogs leave

some people waiting nearly 20 years for their documents.i Nearly four out
of five federal Freedom of Information Act requests result in blacked out
paper, or nothing.ii Requesters might think they have little recourse other
than to sue. Or do they?

We believe that litigation is important, but we also understand that

journalists and citizens don’t have the time or money to wait for a lawsuit
to work its way through the courts. We believe requesters can overcome

21
secrecy through a little ingenuity, strategy and understanding of human
behavior.

This book is a user’s guide to making freedom of information work for

you, to working cooperatively with government officials and using your
skills to pry records loose from officials who are uncooperative. To do
that, journalists and citizens must rethink the information-gathering
process and develop a document state of mind.

They must become practitioners of the art of access.

Our Obsession with Foi

We too are students of the art of access.

Our journey in FOI began as high school journalism students, one in

Washington state and the other in Georgia, and continued through college
and then on the job as newspaper reporters, requesting records for covering
city hall, schools, state government, and federal agencies. When we got
denied, we got mad. Sometimes too mad, sometimes not mad enough, but
we learned along the way, and we usually got the records.

Now, as journalism professors, we teach college courses on access to

government information and on reporting and media law. Our teaching
exercises are included in this book, as well as the best FOI teaching
activities we could find in the field.

Our research, incorporated into this book, focuses on freedom of

information, including legal analysis of FOI laws, public opinion surveys,
studies examining the state of access and experiments in psychological
access strategies.

We also have pulled from our learning experiences as national advocates

for FOI. Both of us have served as chair of the Society of Professional
Journalists’ Freedom of Information Committee, and Davis was executive
director of the National Freedom of Information Coalition. We both taught
FOI through the SPJ newsroom training program, and we routinely speak
to groups about access, sometimes on other continents.

We learn every day. We might get a call from a reporter trying to get a

22
police report or a school superintendent contract. We hear new reasons for
denials, and new ways of overcoming those denials. We watch students in
our college courses fear the prospect of going to their city hall to ask for
documents. We see citizens crying out for help when bureaucrats
stonewall. These people are hungry for knowledge and skills.

After our training sessions we see the relief on their faces and the
determination in their eyes. The word they consistently use to describe
their feelings is “empowered.” That is why we wrote this book.
Knowledge is liberating. Requesters who practice the art of access and
who develop a document state of mind feel empowered, and ultimately,
they get what they need.

Who Should Buy this Book?

We know this book will improve your career and life.

We know it because information is valuable for everyone: journalists,

students, genealogists, private investigators, nonprofit managers and, for
that matter, your parents, children and neighbors, and their parents and
children.

The Art of Access will help journalism students taking classes in media
writing, news reporting, investigative reporting, computer-assisted
reporting and media law. This is the kind of nuts-and-bolts guide that
works well in any skills course, or as a supplement to theory and legal
analysis in a seminar or media law course.

We also think the chapters on psychological strategies and document ideas

will be useful to seasoned professional journalists as a valuable desk guide
in any newsroom cubicle. Newsroom trainers can schedule a year’s worth
of brown-bag lunches based on this book.

While the book was written primarily for journalism students and
practicing reporters, including citizen journalists and bloggers interested in
adding documents to their reports, we think nonjournalists also benefit,
such as private investigators, nonprofit directors, grant writers, business
data analysts and contractors. And we hope citizens active in their
communities will use the book to acquire documents about their
neighborhoods. Everyone can use these skills for their personal lives.

23
Organization
The chapters in The Art of Access walk the requester through the process
of accessing records, step by step, from getting into the right document
state of mind to the final step of publishing a newspaper story, newscast or
webcast.

We first focus on why accessing records is important, including the

benefits that come from documents and their importance to society.

Then we get to the nitty-gritty of the request process, starting with how to
teach yourself the law, how to find records, how to effectively request
them and then how to overcome denials. This is the heart of the book, as it
focuses on practical strategies and techniques proven through personal
experience, interviews with experts and our own research.

Because so much government information is computerized and kept in

databases, we provide a chapter focusing on the specific issues of finding,
acquiring and transferring government data.

We made sure to include a chapter focusing on how public officials see the
access process. We believe it is crucial that requesters understand the
attitudes and culture of records custodians, as well as the barriers they face
in providing documents.

We end the book with a chapter that pulls the process together, including
organizing records, writing the document-based story, thinking about “FOI
ethics” and understanding how people view access issues.

Check out The Record Album in the back of the book for a list of
document ideas, as well as the FOI resources grouped by topic.

Key Features
You will find several key features that we hope will help you get the most
out of this book.

First, we want to provide you with so many ideas for document-based

stories that you could produce 10 years’ worth of projects from this one
book. Throughout the chapters we provide examples of different kinds of

24
documents that led to great reporting. And at the end of the book, in The
Record Album, we offer a list of dozens and dozens of records and how
you can use them.

Second, we tried to pack as many practical tips and strategies into the
chapters as possible, and we highlighted some of the most interesting ones
in quick “Pro tip” boxes that feature professionals from a variety of fields
speaking in their own words. We interviewed more than 200 experts from
throughout the world. You’ll see revered print journalism icons Bob
Woodward and Carl Bernstein. You’ll learn from media lawyers,
television reporters, nonprofits such as the American Civil Liberties Union
and veterans groups, public records ombudsmen, college newspaper
editors, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter from a weekly newspaper, a
private investigator, and the person who has sued the federal government
for records more than anyone else, dubbed the “FOIA Terrorist.”

Third, we tried to provide the most complete guide to practical FOI

resources that you will find anywhere. We include references to websites
and other resources throughout the chapters and then highlight at the end
of each chapter a list of suggested links. In Appendix B, we compiled all
of the resources into one place, grouped by topic as a quick desk reference
when you are on deadline looking for that online request letter generator or
free media legal hotline number.

You’ll be able to get even more information on our blog, at

www.theartofaccess.com, including more records ideas, more resources
and the ability to contact us and ask questions if you run into problems.

Finally, at the end of every chapter we have provided five or six “Try it!”
activities that can be used by newsrooms, classrooms or individual
citizens. Some of these activities are award-winning exercises that we
believe will help you improve your FOI skills and lead to great reporting.

What’s New in this Second Edition

While the fundamental techniques for accessing public records have
remained the same, a lot has changed in the FOI world in the nine years
since this book’s first edition. We have:

Included tips and records ideas from 40 additional experts and

25
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
space the germs of every new discovery. The circulation of the blood
and the law of gravitation are clearly mentioned, though the former
fact, it may be, is not so clearly defined as to withstand the reiterated
attacks of modern science; for according to Prof. Jowett, the specific
discovery that the blood flows out at one side of the heart through
the arteries, and returns through the veins at the other, was unknown
to him, though Plato was perfectly aware “that blood is a fluid in
constant motion.”
Plato’s method, like that of geometry, was to descend from
universals to particulars. Modern science vainly seeks a first cause
among the permutations of molecules; the former sought and found
it amid the majestic sweep of worlds. For him it was enough to know
the great scheme of creation and to be able to trace the mightiest
movements of the universe through their changes to their ultimates.
The petty details, whose observation and classification have so
taxed and demonstrated the patience of modern scientists, occupied
but little of the attention of the old philosophers. Hence, while a fifth-
form boy of an English school can prate more learnedly about the
little things of physical science than Plato himself, yet, on the other
hand, the dullest of Plato’s disciples could tell more about great
cosmic laws and their mutual relations, and demonstrate a familiarity
with and control over the occult forces which lie behind them, than
the most learned professor in the most distinguished academy of our
day.
This fact, so little appreciated and never dwelt upon by Plato’s
translators, accounts for the self-laudation in which we moderns
indulge at the expense of that philosopher and his compeers. Their
alleged mistakes in anatomy and physiology are magnified to an
inordinate extent to gratify our self-love, until, in acquiring the idea of
our own superior learning, we lose sight of the intellectual splendor
which adorns the ages of the past; it is as if one should, in fancy,
magnify the solar spots until he should believe the bright luminary to
be totally eclipsed.
The unprofitableness of modern scientific research is evinced in
the fact that while we have a name for the most trivial particle of
mineral, plant, animal, and man, the wisest of our teachers are
unable to tell us anything definite about the vital force which
produces the changes in these several kingdoms. It is necessary to
seek further for corroboration of this statement than the works of our
highest scientific authorities themselves.
It requires no little moral courage in a man of eminent professional
position to do justice to the acquirements of the ancients, in the face
of a public sentiment which is content with nothing else than their
abasement. When we meet with a case of the kind we gladly lay a
laurel at the feet of the bold and honest scholar. Such is Professor
Jowett, Master of Balliol College, and Regius Professor of Greek in
the University of Oxford, who, in his translation of Plato’s works,
speaking of “the physical philosophy of the ancients as a whole,”
gives them the following credit: 1. “That the nebular theory was the
received belief of the early physicists.” Therefore it could not have
rested, as Draper asserts,[396] upon the telescopic discovery made
by Herschel I. 2. “That the development of animals out of frogs who
came to land, and of man out of the animals, was held by
Anaximenes in the sixth century before Christ.” The professor might
have added that this theory antedated Anaximenes by some
thousands of years, perhaps; that it was an accepted doctrine
among Chaldeans, and that Darwin’s evolution of species and
monkey theory are of an antediluvian origin. 3. “ ... that, even by
Philolaus and the early Pythagoreans, the earth was held to be a
body like the other stars revolving in space.”[397] Thus Galileo,
studying some Pythagorean fragments, which are shown by
Reuchlin to have yet existed in the days of the Florentine
mathematician;[398] being, moreover, familiar with the doctrines of
the old philosophers, but reässerted an astronomical doctrine which
prevailed in India at the remotest antiquity. 4. The ancients “ ...
thought that there was a sex in plants as well as in animals.” Thus
our modern naturalists had but to follow in the steps of their
predecessors. 5. “That musical notes depended on the relative
length or tension of the strings from which they were emitted, and
were measured by ratios of number.” 6. “That mathematical laws
pervaded the world and even qualitative differences were supposed
to have their origin in number;” and 7, “the annihilation of matter was
denied by them, and held to be a transformation only.”[399] “Although
one of these discoveries might have been supposed to be a happy
guess,” adds Mr. Jowett, “we can hardly attribute them all to mere
coincidences.”[400]
In short, the Platonic philosophy was one of order, system, and
proportion; it embraced the evolution of worlds and species, the
correlation and conservation of energy, the transmutation of material
form, the indestructibility of matter and of spirit. Their position in the
latter respect being far in advance of modern science, and binding
the arch of their philosophical system with a keystone at once perfect
and immovable. If science has made such colossal strides during
these latter days—if we have such clearer ideas of natural law than
the ancients—why are our inquiries as to the nature and source of
life unanswered? If the modern laboratory is so much richer in the
fruits of experimental research than those of the olden time, how
comes it that we make no step except on paths that were trodden
long before the Christian era? How does it happen that the most
advanced standpoint that has been reached in our times only
enables us to see in the dim distance up the Alpine path of
knowledge the monumental proofs that earlier explorers have left to
mark the plateaux they had reached and occupied?
If modern masters are so much in advance of the old ones, why do
they not restore to us the lost arts of our postdiluvian forefathers?
Why do they not give us the unfading colors of Luxor—the Tyrian
purple; the bright vermilion and dazzling blue which decorate the
walls of this place, and are as bright as on the first day of their
application? The indestructible cement of the pyramids and of
ancient aqueducts; the Damascus blade, which can be turned like a
corkscrew in its scabbard without breaking; the gorgeous,
unparalleled tints of the stained glass that is found amid the dust of
old ruins and beams in the windows of ancient cathedrals; and the
secret of the true malleable glass? And if chemistry is so little able to
rival even with the early mediæval ages in some arts, why boast of
achievements which, according to strong probability, were perfectly
known thousands of years ago? The more archæology and philology
advance, the more humiliating to our pride are the discoveries which
are daily made, the more glorious testimony do they bear in behalf of
those who, perhaps on account of the distance of their remote
antiquity, have been until now considered ignorant flounderers in the
deepest mire of superstition.
Why should we forget that, ages before the prow of the
adventurous Genoese clove the Western waters, the Phœnician
vessels had circumnavigated the globe, and spread civilization in
regions now silent and deserted? What archæologist will dare assert
that the same hand which planned the Pyramids of Egypt, Karnak,
and the thousand ruins now crumbling to oblivion on the sandy
banks of the Nile, did not erect the monumental Nagkon-Wat of
Cambodia? or trace the hieroglyphics on the obelisks and doors of
the deserted Indian village, newly discovered in British Columbia by
Lord Dufferin? or those on the ruins of Palenque and Uxmal, of
Central America? Do not the relics we treasure in our museums—
last mementos of the long “lost arts” speak loudly in favor of ancient
civilization? And do they not prove, over and over again, that nations
and continents that have passed away have buried along with them
arts and sciences, which neither the first crucible ever heated in a
mediæval cloister, nor the last cracked by a modern chemist have
revived, nor will—at least, in the present century.
“They were not without some knowledge of optics,” Professor
Draper magnanimously concedes to the ancients; others positively
deny to them even that little. “The convex lens found at Nimroud
shows that they were not unacquainted with magnifying
instruments.”[401] Indeed? If they were not, all the classical authors
must have lied. For, when Cicero tells us that he had seen the entire
Iliad written on skin of such a miniature size, that it could easily be
rolled up inside a nut-shell, and Pliny asserts that Nero had a ring
with a small glass in it, through which he watched the performance of
the gladiators at a distance—could audacity go farther? Truly, when
we are told that Mauritius could see from the promontory of Sicily
over the entire sea to the coast of Africa, with an instrument called
nauscopite, we must either think that all these witnesses lied, or that
the ancients were more than slightly acquainted with optics and
magnifying glasses. Wendell Phillips states that he has a friend who
possesses an extraordinary ring “perhaps three-quarters of an inch
in diameter, and on it is the naked figure of the god Hercules. By the
aid of glasses, you can distinguish the interlacing muscles, and
count every separate hair on the eyebrows.... Rawlinson brought
home a stone about twenty inches long and ten wide, containing an
entire treatise on mathematics. It would be perfectly illegible without
glasses.... In Dr. Abbott’s Museum, there is a ring of Cheops, to
which Bunsen assigns 500 b.c. The signet of the ring is about the
size of a quarter of a dollar, and the engraving is invisible without the
aid of glasses.... At Parma, they will show you a gem once worn on
the finger of Michael Angelo, of which the engraving is 2,000 years
old, and on which there are the figures of seven women. You must
have the aid of powerful glasses in order to distinguish the forms at
all.... So the microscope,” adds the learned lecturer, “instead of
dating from our time, finds its brothers in the Books of Moses—and
these are infant brothers.“
The foregoing facts do not seem to show that the ancients had
merely “some knowledge of optics.” Therefore, totally disagreeing in
this particular with Professor Fiske and his criticism of Professor
Draper’s Conflict in his Unseen World, the only fault we find with the
admirable book of Draper is that, as an historical critic, he
sometimes uses his own optical instruments in the wrong place.
While, in order to magnify the atheism of the Pythagorean Bruno, he
looks through convex lenses; whenever talking of the knowledge of
the ancients, he evidently sees things through concave ones.
It is simply worthy of admiration to follow in various modern works
the cautious attempts of both pious Christians and skeptical, albeit
very learned men, to draw a line of demarcation between what we
are and what we are not to believe, in ancient authors. No credit is
ever allowed them without being followed by a qualifying caution. If
Strabo tells us that ancient Nineveh was forty-seven miles in
circumference, and his testimony is accepted, why should it be
otherwise the moment he testifies to the accomplishment of Sibylline
prophecies? Where is the common sense in calling Herodotus the
“Father of History,” and then accusing him, in the same breath, of
silly gibberish, whenever he recounts marvellous manifestations, of
which he was an eye-witness? Perhaps, after all, such a caution is
more than ever necessary, now that our epoch has been christened
the Century of Discovery. The disenchantment may prove too cruel
for Europe. Gunpowder, which has long been thought an invention of
Bacon and Schwartz, is now shown in the school-books to have
been used by the Chinese for levelling hills and blasting rocks,
centuries before our era. “In the Museum of Alexandria,” says
Draper, “there was a machine invented by Hero, the mathematician,
a little more than 100 years b.c. It revolved by the agency of steam,
and was of the form that we should now call a reaction-engine....
Chance had nothing to do with the invention of the modern steam-
engine.”[402] Europe prides herself upon the discoveries of
Copernicus and Galileo, and now we are told that the astronomical
observations of the Chaldeans extend back to within a hundred
years of the flood; and Bunsen fixes the flood at not less than 10,000
years before our era.[403] Moreover, a Chinese emperor, more than
2,000 years before the birth of Christ (i. e., before Moses) put to
death his two chief astronomers for not predicting an eclipse of the
sun.
It may be noted, as an example of the inaccuracy of current
notions as to the scientific claims of the present century, that the
discoveries of the indestructibility of matter and force-correlation,
especially the latter, are heralded as among our crowning triumphs.
It is “the most important discovery of the present century,” as Sir
William Armstrong expressed it in his famous address as president
of the British Association. But, this “important discovery” is no
discovery after all. Its origin, apart from the undeniable traces of it to
be found among the old philosophers, is lost in the dense shadows
of prehistoric days. Its first vestiges are discovered in the dreamy
speculations of Vedic theology, in the doctrine of emanation and
absorption, the nirvana in short. John Erigena outlined it in his bold
philosophy in the eighth century, and we invite any one to read his
De Divisione Naturæ, who would convince himself of this truth.
Science tells that when the theory of the indestructibility of matter
(also a very, very old idea of Demokritus, by the way) was
demonstrated, it became necessary to extend it to force. No material
particle can ever be lost; no part of the force existing in nature can
vanish; hence, force was likewise proved indestructible, and its
various manifestations or forces, under divers aspects, were shown
to be mutually convertible, and but different modes of motion of the
material particles. And thus was rediscovered the force-correlation.
Mr. Grove, so far back as 1842, gave to each of these forces, such
as heat, electricity, magnetism, and light, the character of
convertibility; making them capable of being at one moment a cause,
and at the next an effect.[404] But whence come these forces, and
whither do they go, when we lose sight of them? On this point
science is silent.
The theory of “force-correlation,” though it may be in the minds of
our contemporaries “the greatest discovery of the age,” can account
for neither the beginning nor the end of one of such forces; neither
can the theory point out the cause of it. Forces may be convertible,
and one may produce the other, still, no exact science is able to
explain the alpha and omega of the phenomenon. In what particular
are we then in advance of Plato who, discussing in the Timæus the
primary and secondary qualities of matter,[405] and the feebleness of
human intellect, makes Timæus say: “God knows the original
qualities of things; man can only hope to attain to probability.” We
have but to open one of the several pamphlets of Huxley and Tyndall
to find precisely the same confession; but they improve upon Plato
by not allowing even God to know more than themselves; and
perhaps it may be upon this that they base their claims of
superiority? The ancient Hindus founded their doctrine of emanation
and absorption on precisely that law. The Τὸ Ὀν the primordial point
in the boundless circle, “whose circumference is nowhere, and the
centre everywhere,” emanating from itself all things, and manifesting
them in the visible universe under multifarious forms; the forms
interchanging, commingling, and, after a gradual transformation from
the pure spirit (or the Buddhistic “nothing”), into the grossest matter,
beginning to recede and as gradually re-emerge into their primitive
state, which is the absorption into Nirvana[406]—what else is this but
correlation of forces?
Science tells us that heat may be shown to develop electricity,
electricity produce heat; and magnetism to evolve electricity, and
vice versa. Motion, they tell us, results from motion itself, and so on,
ad infinitum. This is the A B C of occultism and of the earliest
alchemists. The indestructibility of matter and force being discovered
and proved, the great problem of eternity is solved. What need have
we more of spirit? its uselessness is henceforth scientifically
demonstrated!
Thus modern philosophers may be said not to have gone one step
beyond what the priests of Samothrace, the Hindus, and even the
Christian Gnostics well knew. The former have shown it in that
wonderfully ingenious mythos of the Dioskuri, or “the sons of
heaven;” the twin brothers, spoken of by Schweigger, “who
constantly die and return to life together, while it is absolutely
necessary that one should die that the other may live.” They knew as
well as our physicists, that when a force has disappeared it has
simply been converted into another force. Though archæology may
not have discovered any ancient apparatus for such special
conversions, it may nevertheless be affirmed with perfect reason and
upon analogical deductions that nearly all the ancient religions were
based on such indestructibility of matter and force—plus the
emanation of the whole from an ethereal, spiritual fire—or the central
sun, which is God or spirit, on the knowledge of whose potentiality is
based ancient theurgic magic.
In the manuscript commentary of Proclus on magic he gives the
following account: “In the same manner as lovers gradually advance
from that beauty which is apparent in sensible forms, to that which is
divine; so the ancient priests, when they considered that there is a
certain alliance and sympathy in natural things to each other, and of
things manifest to occult powers, and discovered that all things
subsist in all, they fabricated a sacred science from this mutual
sympathy and similarity. Thus they recognized things supreme in
such as are subordinate, and the subordinate in the supreme; in the
celestial regions, terrene properties subsisting in a causal and
celestial manner; and in earth celestial properties, but according to a
terrene condition.”
Proclus then proceeds to point to certain mysterious peculiarities
of plants, minerals, and animals, all of which are well known to our
naturalists, but none of which are explained. Such are the rotatory
motion of the sunflower, of the heliotrope, of the lotos—which, before
the rising of the sun, folds its leaves, drawing the petals within itself,
so to say, then expands them gradually, as the sun rises, and draws
them in again as it descends to the west—of the sun and lunar
stones and the helioselenus, of the cock and lion, and other animals.
“Now the ancients,” he says, “having contemplated this mutual
sympathy of things (celestial and terrestrial) applied them for occult
purposes, both celestial and terrene natures, by means of which,
through a certain similitude, they deduced divine virtues into this
inferior abode.... All things are full of divine natures; terrestrial
natures receiving the plenitude of such as are celestial, but celestial
of supercelestial essences, while every order of things proceeds
gradually in a beautiful descent from the highest to the lowest.[407]
For whatever particulars are collected into one above the order of
things, are afterwards dilated in descending, various souls being
distributed under their various ruling divinities.”[408]
Evidently Proclus does not advocate here simply a superstition,
but science; for notwithstanding that it is occult, and unknown to our
scholars, who deny its possibilities, magic is still a science. It is firmly
and solely based on the mysterious affinities existing between
organic and inorganic bodies, the visible productions of the four
kingdoms, and the invisible powers of the universe. That which
science calls gravitation, the ancients and the mediæval hermetists
called magnetism, attraction, affinity. It is the universal law, which is
understood by Plato and explained in Timæus as the attraction of
lesser bodies to larger ones, and of similar bodies to similar, the
latter exhibiting a magnetic power rather than following the law of
gravitation. The anti-Aristotelean formula that gravity causes all
bodies to descend with equal rapidity, without reference to their
weight, the difference being caused by some other unknown agency,
would seem to point a great deal more forcibly to magnetism than to
gravitation, the former attracting rather in virtue of the substance
than of the weight. A thorough familiarity with the occult faculties of
everything existing in nature, visible as well as invisible; their mutual
relations, attractions, and repulsions; the cause of these, traced to
the spiritual principle which pervades and animates all things; the
ability to furnish the best conditions for this principle to manifest
itself, in other words a profound and exhaustive knowledge of natural
law—this was and is the basis of magic.
In his notes on Ghosts and Goblins, when reviewing some facts
adduced by certain illustrious defenders of the spiritual phenomena,
such as Professor de Morgan, Mr. Robert Dale Owen, and Mr.
Wallace among others—Mr. Richard A. Proctor says that he “cannot
see any force in the following remarks by Professor Wallace: ‘How is
such evidence as this,’ he (Wallace) says, speaking of one of
Owen’s stories, ‘refuted or explained away? Scores, and even
hundreds, of equally-attested facts are on record, but no attempt is
made to explain them. They are simply ignored, and in many cases
admitted to be inexplicable.’” To this Mr. Proctor jocularly replies that
as “our philosophers declare that they have long ago decided these
ghost stories to be all delusions; therefore they need only be
ignored; and they feel much ‘worritted’ that fresh evidence should be
adduced, and fresh converts made, some of whom are so
unreasonable as to ask for a new trial on the ground that the former
verdict was contrary to the evidence.”
“All this,” he goes on to say, “affords excellent reason why the
‘converts’ should not be ridiculed for their belief; but something more
to the purpose must be urged before ‘the philosophers’ can be
expected to devote much of their time to the inquiry suggested. It
ought to be shown that the well-being of the human race is to some
important degree concerned in the matter, whereas the trivial nature
of all ghostly conduct hitherto recorded is admitted even by
converts!”
 Mrs. Emma Hardinge Britten has collected a great number of
authenticated facts from secular and scientific journals, which show
with what serious questions our scientists sometimes replace the
vexed subject of “Ghosts and Goblins.” She quotes from a
Washington paper a report of one of these solemn conclaves, held
on the evening of April 29th, 1854. Professor Hare, of Philadelphia,
the venerable chemist, who was so universally respected for his
individual character, as well as for his life-long labors for science,
“was bullied into silence” by Professor Henry, as soon as he had
touched the subject of spiritualism. “The impertinent action of one of
the members of the ‘American Scientific Association,’” says the
authoress, “was sanctioned by the majority of that distinguished
body and subsequently endorsed by all of them in their
proceedings.”[409] On the following morning, in the report of the
session, the Spiritual Telegraph thus commented upon the events:
“It would seem that a subject like this” (presented by Professor
Hare) was one which would lie peculiarly within the domain of
‘science.’ But the ‘American Association for the Promotion of
Science’,[410] decided that it was either unworthy of their attention or
dangerous for them to meddle with, and so they voted to put the
invitation on the table.... We cannot omit in this connection to
mention that the ‘American Association for the Promotion of Science’
held a very learned, extended, grave, and profound discussion at the
same session, upon the cause why ‘roosters crow between twelve
and one o’clock at night!’ A subject worthy of philosophers; and one,
moreover, which must have been shown to effect “the well-being of
the human race” in a very “important degree.”
It is sufficient for one to express belief in the existence of a
mysterious sympathy between the life of certain plants and that of
human beings, to assure being made the subject of ridicule.
Nevertheless, there are many well-authenticated cases going to
show the reality of such an affinity. Persons have been known to fall
sick simultaneously with the uprooting of a tree planted upon their
natal day, and dying when the tree died. Reversing affairs, it has
been known that a tree planted under the same circumstances
withered and died simultaneously with the person whose twin
brother, so to speak, it was. The former would be called by Mr.
Proctor an “effect of the imagination;” the latter a “curious
coincidence.”
Max Müller gives a number of such cases in his essay On
Manners and Customs. He shows this popular tradition existing in
Central America, in India, and Germany. He traces it over nearly all
Europe; finds it among the Maori Warriors, in British Guiana, and in
Asia. Reviewing Tyler’s Researches into the Early History of
Mankind, a work in which are brought together quite a number of
such traditions, the great philologist very justly remarks the following:
“If it occurred in Indian and German tales only, we might consider it
as ancient Aryan property; but when we find it again in Central
America, nothing remains but either to admit a later communication
between European settlers and native American story-tellers ... or to
inquire whether there is not some intelligible and truly human
element in this supposed sympathy between the life of flowers and
the life of man.”
The present generation of men, who believe in nothing beyond the
superficial evidence of their senses, will doubtless reject the very
idea of such a sympathetic power existing in plants, animals, and
even stones. The caul covering their inner sight allows them to see
but that which they cannot well deny. The author of the Asclepian
Dialogue furnishes us with a reason for it, that might perhaps fit the
present period and account for this epidemic of unbelief. In our
century, as then, “there is a lamentable departure of divinity from
man, when nothing worthy of heaven or celestial concerns is heard
or believed, and when every divine voice is by a necessary silence
dumb.”[411] Or, as the Emperor Julian has it, “the little soul” of the
skeptic “is indeed acute, but sees nothing with a vision healthy and
sound.”
We are at the bottom of a cycle and evidently in a transitory state.
Plato divides the intellectual progress of the universe during every
cycle into fertile and barren periods. In the sublunary regions, the
spheres of the various elements remain eternally in perfect harmony
with the divine nature, he says; “but their parts,” owing to a too close
proximity to earth, and their commingling with the earthly (which is
matter, and therefore the realm of evil), “are sometimes according,
and sometimes contrary to (divine) nature.” When those circulations
—which Eliphas Levi calls “currents of the astral light” in the
universal ether which contains in itself every element, take place in
harmony with the divine spirit, our earth and everything pertaining to
it enjoys a fertile period. The occult powers of plants, animals, and
minerals magically sympathize with the “superior natures,” and the
divine soul of man is in perfect intelligence with these “inferior” ones.
But during the barren periods, the latter lose their magic sympathy,
and the spiritual sight of the majority of mankind is so blinded as to
lose every notion of the superior powers of its own divine spirit. We
are in a barren period: the eighteenth century, during which the
malignant fever of skepticism broke out so irrepressibly, has entailed
unbelief as an hereditary disease upon the nineteenth. The divine
intellect is veiled in man; his animal brain alone philosophizes.
Formerly, magic was a universal science, entirely in the hands of
the sacerdotal savant. Though the focus was jealously guarded in
the sanctuaries, its rays illuminated the whole of mankind.
Otherwise, how are we to account for the extraordinary identity of
“superstitions,” customs, traditions, and even sentences, repeated in
popular proverbs so widely scattered from one pole to the other that
we find exactly the same ideas among the Tartars and Laplanders as
among the southern nations of Europe, the inhabitants of the
steppes of Russia, and the aborigines of North and South America?
For instance, Tyler shows one of the ancient Pythagorean maxims,
“Do not stir the fire with a sword,” as popular among a number of
nations which have not the slightest connection with each other. He
quotes De Plano Carpini, who found this tradition prevailing among
the Tartars so far back as in 1246. A Tartar will not consent for any
amount of money to stick a knife into the fire, or touch it with any
sharp or pointed instrument, for fear of cutting the “head of the fire.”
The Kamtchadal of North-eastern Asia consider it a great sin so to
do. The Sioux Indians of North America dare not touch the fire with
either needle, knife, or any sharp instrument. The Kalmucks
entertain the same dread; and an Abyssinian would rather bury his
bare arms to the elbows in blazing coals than use a knife or axe near
them. All these facts Tyler also calls “simply curious coincidences.”
Max Müller, however, thinks that they lose much of their force by the
fact “of the Pythagorean doctrine being at the bottom of it.”
Every sentence of Pythagoras, like most of the ancient maxims,
has a dual signification; and, while it had an occult physical meaning,
expressed literally in its words, it embodied a moral precept, which is
explained by Iamblichus in his Life of Pythagoras. This “Dig not fire
with a sword,” is the ninth symbol in the Protreptics of this Neo-
platonist. “This symbol,” he says, “exhorts to prudence.” It shows
“the propriety of not opposing sharp words to a man full of fire and
wrath—not contending with him. For frequently by uncivil words you
will agitate and disturb an ignorant man, and you will suffer
yourself.... Herakleitus also testifies to the truth of this symbol. For,
he says, ‘It is difficult to fight with anger, for whatever is necessary to
be done redeems the soul.’ And this he says truly. For many, by
gratifying anger, have changed the condition of their soul, and have
made death preferable to life. But by governing the tongue and being
quiet, friendship is produced from strife, the fire of anger being
extinguished, and you yourself will not appear to be destitute of
intellect.”[412]
We have had misgivings sometimes; we have questioned the
impartiality of our own judgment, our ability to offer a respectful
criticism upon the labors of such giants as some of our modern
philosophers—Tyndall, Huxley, Spencer, Carpenter, and a few
others. In our immoderate love for the “men of old” the primitive
sages—we were always afraid to trespass the boundaries of justice
and refuse their dues to those who deserve them. Gradually this
natural fear gave way before an unexpected reinforcement. We
found out that we were but the feeble echo of public opinion, which,
though suppressed, has sometimes found relief in able articles
scattered throughout the periodicals of the country. One of such can
be found in the National Quarterly Review of December, 1875,
entitled “Our Sensational Present-Day Philosophers.” It is a very able
article, discussing fearlessly the claims of several of our scientists to
new discoveries in regard to the nature of matter, the human soul,
the mind, the universe; how the universe came into existence, etc.
“The religious world has been much startled,” the author proceeds to
say, “and not a little excited by the utterances of men like Spencer,
Tyndall, Huxley, Proctor, and a few others of the same school.”
Admitting very cheerfully how much science owes to each of those
gentlemen, nevertheless the author “most emphatically” denies that
they have made any discoveries at all. There is nothing new in the
speculations, even of the most advanced of them; nothing which was
not known and taught, in one form or another, thousands of years
ago. He does not say that these scientists “put forward their theories
as their own discoveries, but they leave the fact to be implied, and
the newspapers do the rest.... The public, which has neither time nor
the inclination to examine the facts, adopts the faith of the
newspapers ... and wonders what will come next! ... The supposed
originators of such startling theories are assailed in the newspapers.
Sometimes the obnoxious scientists undertake to defend
themselves, but we cannot recall a single instance in which they
have candidly said, ‘Gentlemen, be not angry with us; we are merely
revamping stories which are nearly as old as the mountains.’” This
would have been the simple truth; “but even scientists or
philosophers,” adds the author, “are not always proof against the
weakness of encouraging any notion which they think may secure
niches for them among the immortal ones.”[413]
Huxley, Tyndall, and even Spencer have become lately the great
oracles, the “infallible popes” on the dogmas of protoplasm,
molecules, primordial forms, and atoms. They have reaped more
palms and laurels for their great discoveries than Lucretius, Cicero,
Plutarch, and Seneca had hairs on their heads. Nevertheless, the
works of the latter teem with ideas on the protoplasm, primordial
forms, etc., let alone the atoms, which caused Demokritus to be
called the atomic philosopher. In the same Review we find this very
startling denunciation:
“Who, among the innocent, has not been astonished, even within
the last year, at the wonderful results accomplished by oxygen?
What an excitement Tyndall and Huxley have created by
proclaiming, in their own ingenious, oracular way, just the very
doctrines which we have just quoted from Liebig; yet, as early as
1840, Professor Lyon Playfair translated into English the most
‘advanced’ of Baron Liebig’s works.”[414]
“Another recent utterance,” he says, “which startled a large
number of innocent and pious persons, is, that every thought we
express, or attempt to express, produces a certain wonderful change
in the substance of the brain. But, for this and a good deal more of
its kind, our philosophers had only to turn to the pages of Baron
Liebig. Thus, for instance, that scientist proclaims: “Physiology has
sufficiently decisive grounds for the opinions, that every thought,
every sensation is accompanied by a change in the composition of
the substance of the brain; that every motion, every manifestation of
force is the result of a transformation of the structure or of its
substance.[415]
Thus, throughout the sensational lectures of Tyndall, we can trace,
almost to a page, the whole of Liebig’s speculations, interlined now
and then with the still earlier views of Demokritus and other Pagan
philosophers. A potpourri of old hypotheses elevated by the great
authority of the day into quasi-demonstrated formulas, and delivered
in that pathetic, picturesque, mellow, and thrillingly-eloquent
phraseology so pre-eminently his own.
Further, the same reviewer shows us many of the identical ideas
and all the material requisite to demonstrate the great discoveries of
Tyndall and Huxley, in the works of Dr. Joseph Priestley, author of
Disquisitions on Matter and Spirit, and even in Herder’s Philosophy
of History.
“Priestley,” adds the author, “was not molested by government,
simply because he had no ambition to obtain fame by proclaiming
his atheistic views from the house-top. This philosopher ... was the
author of from seventy to eighty volumes, and the discoverer of
oxygen.” It is in these works that “he puts forward those identical
ideas which have been declared so ‘startling,’ ‘bold,’ etc., as the
utterances of our present-day philosophers.”
 “Our readers,” he proceeds to say, “remember what an excitement
has been created by the utterances of some of our modern
philosophers as to the origin and nature of ideas, but those
utterances, like others that preceded and followed them, contain
nothing new.” “An idea,” says Plutarch, “is a being incorporeal, which
has no subsistence by itself, but gives figure and form unto
shapeless matter, and becomes the cause of its manifestation” (De
Placitio Philosophorum).
Verily, no modern atheist, Mr. Huxley included, can outvie Epicurus
in materialism; he can but mimic him. And what is his “protoplasm,”
but a rechauffé of the speculations of the Hindu Swâbhâvikas or
Pantheists, who assert that all things, the gods as well as men and
animals, are born from Swâbhâva or their own nature?[416] As to
Epicurus, this is what Lucretius makes him say: “The soul, thus
produced, must be material, because we trace it issuing from a
material source; because it exists, and exists alone in a material
system; is nourished by material food; grows with the growth of the
body; becomes matured with its maturity; declines with its decay;
and hence, whether belonging to man or brute, must die with its
death.” Nevertheless, we would remind the reader that Epicurus is
here speaking of the Astral Soul, not of Divine Spirit. Still, if we
rightly understand the above, Mr. Huxley’s “mutton-protoplasm” is of
a very ancient origin, and can claim for its birthplace, Athens, and for
its cradle, the brain of old Epicurus.
Further, still, anxious not to be misunderstood or found guilty of
depreciating the labor of any of our scientists, the author closes his
essay by remarking, “We merely want to show that, at least, that
portion of the public which considers itself intelligent and enlightened
should cultivate its memory, or remember the ‘advanced’ thinkers of
the past much better than it does. Especially should those do so
who, whether from the desk, the rostrum, or the pulpit, undertake to
instruct all willing to be instructed by them. There would then be
much less groundless apprehension, much less charlatanism, and
above all, much less plagiarism, than there is.”[417]
 Truly says Cudworth that the greatest ignorance of which our
modern wiseacres accuse the ancients is their belief in the soul’s
immortality. Like the old skeptic of Greece, our scientists—to use an
expression of the same Dr. Cudworth—are afraid that if they admit
spirits and apparitions they must admit a God too; and there is
nothing too absurd, he adds, for them to suppose, in order to keep
out the existence of God. The great body of ancient materialists,
skeptical as they now seem to us, thought otherwise, and Epicurus,
who rejected the soul’s immortality, believed still in a God, and
Demokritus fully conceded the reality of apparitions. The
preëxistence and God-like powers of the human spirit were believed
in by most all the sages of ancient days. The magic of Babylon and
Persia based upon it the doctrine of their machagistia. The Chaldean
Oracles, on which Pletho and Psellus have so much commented,
constantly expounded and amplified their testimony. Zoroaster,
Pythagoras, Epicharmus, Empedocles, Kebes, Euripides, Plato,
Euclid, Philo, Boëthius, Virgil, Marcus Cicero, Plotinus, Iamblichus,
Proclus, Psellus, Synesius, Origen, and, finally, Aristotle himself, far
from denying our immortality, support it most emphatically. Like
Cardon and Pompanatius, “who were no friends to the soul’s
immortality,” as says Henry More, “Aristotle expressly concludes that
the rational soul is both a distinct being from the soul of the world,
though of the same essence, and that “it does preëxist before it
comes into the body.”[418]
Years have rolled away since the Count Joseph De Maistre wrote
a sentence which, if appropriate to the Voltairean epoch in which he
lived, applies with still more justice to our period of utter skepticism.
“I have heard,” writes this eminent man, “I have heard and read of
myriads of good jokes on the ignorance of the ancients, who were
always seeing spirits everywhere; methinks that we are a great deal
more imbecile than our forefathers, in never perceiving any such
now, anywhere.”[419]
 CHAPTER VIII.
“Think not my magic wonders wrought by aid
Of Stygian angels summoned up from Hell;
Scorned and accursed by those who have essay’d
Her gloomy Divs and Afrites to compel.
But by perception of the secret powers
Of mineral springs, in nature’s inmost cell,
Of herbs in curtain of her greenest bowers,
And of the moving stars o’er mountain tops and towers.”
—Tasso, Canto XIV., xliii.

“Who dares think one thing and another tell

My heart detests him as the gates of Hell!”—Pope.

“If man ceases to exist when he disappears in the grave, you must be compelled
to affirm that he is the only creature in existence whom nature or providence has
condescended to deceive and cheat by capacities for which there are no available
objects.”—Bulwer-Lytton: Strange Story.

T he preface of Richard A. Proctor’s latest work on astronomy,

entitled Our Place among Infinities, contains the following
extraordinary words: “It was their ignorance of the earth’s place
among infinities, which led the ancients to regard the heavenly
bodies as ruling favorably or adversely the fates of men and nations,
and to dedicate the days in sets of seven to the seven planets of
their astrological system.”
Mr. Proctor makes two distinct assertions in this sentence: 1. That
the ancients were ignorant of the earth’s place among infinities; and
2, That they regarded the heavenly bodies as ruling, favorably or
adversely, the fates of men and nations.[420] We are very confident
that there is at least good reason to suspect that the ancients were
familiar with the movements, emplacement, and mutual relations of
the heavenly bodies. The testimony of Plutarch, Professor Draper,
and Jowett, are sufficiently explicit. But we would ask Mr. Proctor
how it happens, if the ancient astronomers were so ignorant of the
law of the birth and death of worlds that, in the fragmentary bits
which the hand of time has spared us of ancient lore there should be
—albeit couched in obscure language—so much information which
the most recent discoveries of science have verified? Beginning with
the tenth page of the work under notice, Mr. Proctor sketches for us
the theory of the formation of our earth, and the successive changes
through which it passed until it became habitable for man. In vivid
colors he depicts the gradual accretion of cosmic matter into
gaseous spheres surrounded with “a liquid non-permanent shell;” the
condensation of both; the ultimate solidification of the external crust;
the slow cooling of the mass; the chemical results following the
action of intense heat upon the primitive earthy matter; the formation
of soils and their distribution; the change in the constitution of the
atmosphere; the appearance of vegetation and animal life; and,
finally, the advent of man.
Now, let us turn to the oldest written records left us by the
Chaldeans, the Hermetic Book of Numbers,[421] and see what we
shall find in the allegorical language of Hermes, Kadmus, or Thuti,
the thrice great Trismegistus. “In the beginning of time the great
invisible one had his holy hands full of celestial matter which he
scattered throughout the infinity; and lo, behold! it became balls of
fire and balls of clay; and they scattered like the moving metal[422]
into many smaller balls, and began their ceaseless turning; and
some of them which were balls of fire became balls of clay; and the
balls of clay became balls of fire; and the balls of fire were waiting
their time to become balls of clay; and the others envied them and
bided their time to become balls of pure divine fire.”
Could any one ask a clearer definition of the cosmic changes
which Mr. Proctor so elegantly expounds?
Here we have the distribution of matter throughout space; then its
concentration into the spherical form; the separation of smaller
spheres from the greater ones; axial rotation; the gradual change of
orbs from the incandescent to the earthy consistence; and, finally,
the total loss of heat which marks their entrance into the stage of
planetary death. The change of the balls of clay into balls of fire