CHAPTER II.

Good and Evil.

"Thou shalt not kill," means one thing to one person and means nothing to another, under the same conditions.

When two nations are doing their utmost to establish the mastery, and the armies are entrenching, shelling each other on every side, mowing soldiers down to death with the rapid fire guns, there is no disturbing influence at work in the breast of the soldiers thus engaged. As a disturbing element, do we care to think of the horrors of war?

History proves nothing. On a "five-foot reference shelf" not over six inches should be given to history. We want to know who wrote the history before we even will condescend to look into the book. It is said that Charles Kingsley, having been appointed lecturer on history in the University of Oxford, resigned the position and the honors on the grounds of incompetency to fill the position, with the approval of his conscience. Afterward, when meeting Froude, they compared notes, and they agreed that "We can never know whether Mary, Queen of Scots, was virtuous or vicious."

When one takes the risk of turning traitor to his mother country, scatters discontent, is treasonable; aids and abets the enemies of his

country, that person brings down upon himself the anger of the nation. Of all the enemies of the nation, such a one is regarded as the worst.

If all the medical fraternity now declare as to crime being an abnormal condition of the mind that can easily be corrected, what of the Guillotine, the scaffold, the dungeon, the straight-jackets that are used to punish wrong doers? If, even a part of this new declaration be true, what of the churches that sanction punishment of murder by death? If my brother commits a wrong that the statute declared is punishable with death, and I deny him the benefit of the medical remedies, the operation by the surgeon that would correct the wrong; have I done the right thing by my brother?

"Am I my brother's keeper?" If his brain needs attention and I send him to the scaffold instead, have I done my full duty?

Professor Elmer Gates, a man of great research in medical lines made the discovery that in the criminals there is a precipitation of dif ferent colored substances, found in the saliva of the party commiting the crime. Some years ago he conducted some experiments with parties who had committed different crimes, and was able to demonstrate to a certainty that the rule was perfectly established in this theory. He collected the saliva from noted criminals and universally the parties who had committed the same crimes; each were possessed with a precipitate that settled to the

bottom of the saliva collected. That some crimes produced a dark brown colored substance, some of a lighter shade, owing to the magnitude of the crime committed. In people of jovial disposition, he collected saliva, and in these universally the precipitate was a white substance. That when this substance collected of the jovial, happy people, was placed on the tongue of others, that it created a like jovial disposition in them.

In the New York Herald, of some years ago, Doctor Gates gives in an article the reason for his theories. "Dogs born in darkness and kept in dark places for a year, without seeing a ray of light, have no more brain cells in the seeing area of the breain than puppies just born. But dogs that have been given a special training, in accordance with the rules of the art of brain building, in the seeing of colors, tints, shades and hues have a greater number of brain cells than any dog of the same species has ever had before.

"I discovetred long ago that whenever I put into any part of the brain new brain cells, the corresponding part of the body was thereby rendered stronger and more healthful. It may be truly said that the body is but a portion of the brain extended; for, as a matter of fact, brain cells, by means of intervening fibres, are in a direct contact with the protoplasm of the cells of the body. If you will limit your attention to some part of the body, as, for instance, to your hand, and refuse to allow any state of

consciousness to enter your mind except the feelings which may arise in that hand. you will soon become aware of a warmth and fullness in that organ, and which by practicing this upon different parts of the body several hours a day for five or six weeks, you will acquire skill in directing intense feeling very quickly in any part of the body you may select. This may be applied to the successful cures of several diseases."

By this law there is established a well defined law by the use of which people can lift themselves out of and above the sordid planes that have a lepressing influence.

It appears that the churches have stood to one side and camped along the old trails that lead out in the woods and back again by a new path.

A short time ago the newspapers gave an account of a boy who developed a mania for murder. He was attending school-did not get his lessons and was going to the bad rapidly. A physician noticed the boy's actions and confided to the boy's father what he thought must be the matter--that some part of the skull was pressing on the brain and causing this mania. The boy underwent an operation, and it was found that a pressure on the brain was causing the trouble. The trouble was corrected and the boy regained his normal mental faculties and his place in the class was kept with ease; he no more desire to injure his playmates. Children who are afflicted with adenoids, lose their

places in the classes at school, fall away in intelligence, and while they may live to old age, they are handicapped greatly in all the walks of life, when a slight operation that would take but a few moments might restore them to usefulness.

Instead of searching for the disturbing elements that cause crime, we lay awake at night wondering what new form of torture we can devise that will cause the wrongdoer to cease his wrong doing.

The people of the State of South Carolina had it adopted in her constitution that no divorces shall be granted under any cause whatever. That rule would meet with the approval of the most anti-divorce person, sect or denomination.

There is another force at work in that state that modifies this rigid rule. Where parties cannot harmonize as husband and wife in that state, the one being wronged can go to the judge of the court and get an allowance, set apart from the estate to be used to keep a companion in the home.

The equity court looks upon a thing done that should be done. The South Carolina rigid law is annulled by the court. It is possible that the law makers of that state had not reckoned on the law of equity. Had they so guarded the constitution of that state and made the law so rigid that the court of equity could not have intervened, such a law would have been useless for no power is delegated to any set of law