1725 U •:> $ % ,-$> % * l ".« V o, ,00 aV ^ liiulriiliill IIHluilllllltllll Ulllllllk TV r s* «3 <> * O. ^ v* N -X s - - ■"■ ■ ' <> 4*" ~rj THE PERIODIC LAW. - BY % REV. GEO. A. LEAKIN, A. M., BALTIMORE, "There is a confident expectation in the minds of men of the re- appearance in higher spheres of the same laws and relations which they have recognised in the lower ; and thus that which is like is also likely or probable. Butler's Analogy is just the unfolding (as he himself declares at the beginning) in one particular line of thought that the like is also the likely."— Trench on the Parables. POTT & AMERY, PUBLISHERS, Nos. 5 & 13 Cooper Union. 1868. HFl72,S Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 186S, BY GEO. A. LEAKIX, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court in the District of Maryland . John W. Amerman, Printer, 47 Cedar-street, N. Y. PEEFAOE The author of this treatise, from many years of pastoral experience, has had opportunities of investigating the phases of mental emotions, and as his observations extended, he was led to sus- pect the same law of Periodicity as obtains in the world of nature. While Chaplain of a Hospital, he sought the aid of skillful Surgeons, whose testimony corroborated his own previously ex- pressed views ; and he now submits his conclu- sions to the intelligent reader, and shall be glad to receive any similar investigations in a field comparatively unexplored. The value of this Periodic law will be apparent to the Physician, the Agriculturist, the Underwriter, the Teacher, the Minister, and to all interested in mental and moral progress ; and though he is unable to state all the practical bearings of this principle, he yet feels at liberty to suggest a realm of Thought more lasting than the Incas. CONTENTS, CHAPTER I. The Periodic Law universal — Natural Objects typical of mental and moral Laws — Man the true Chronometer — Does Chance exist? — Chance injurious to mental and moral Improvement — First Truths always novel. CHAPTER II. The AYeather's caprice — Storm-signals — Locomotive Com- munications — Inundations — Mlometers — Sir Samuel Baker's discovery — Important use of Telegraphs — Inter- nal Oscillations. CHAPTER III. Periodic Harvest failures in France — United States — East Indies — Insurance against Accidents — Failure of Crops — The Science of Insurance — The Law of Accidents — The Moral of Insurance. CHAPTER IV. The Science of Publication — Medical Science — Types of Disease — Wandering thoughts the Comets of the Mind. CHAPTER V. Disease and Insanity — Isolation remedial — Mutineers of the " Bounty" — Circulation of Thought — Popular Com- motions. b CONTENTS. CHAPTER VI. Education — Rise and Decadence of Schools — Cycle with Teacher and Scholar — Religious Depressions and Excite- ments — The Journey of a Day the picture of Human Life — The Law of Coincidence. CHAPTER VII. Science and Mirth — Pre-existence — Post-existence — Dreams — Cycles in Writing — Public Speaking — Conversation and Art. CHAPTER VIII. Rhythm in Music — The Septennial periods of Man's life — Dr. Mahan on Scriptural numbers — Sacred and Profane History — The progress of Empire — Historical repetitions — Social Cycles. CHAPTER IX. The Cycle of Retribution — Is Periodicity Fatalistic ?- " There is a tide " in mental and moral emotions — Cui Bono ? — The Cycle of Science. CHAPTER X. Thought Indestructible — "The River of Time"— Mental "Sympathy — Moral Influence — Heavenly Order. APPENDIX. Natural and Revealed Religion — Cicada Septendecim — Spiritual Insight — Spiritual Laws — Love, Hope and Pa- tience — Scriptural Coincidences — De Tocqueville's De- mocracy — Personal Repetitions — Legenda of St. Valen- tine — Simultaneousness — Emotions. CHAPTER I. THE UNIVERSALITY OF THE PERIODIC LAW. Ijst writing on this subject I am unable to present any recognised text-book as my au- thority, for after years of investigation I have found no special treatise on Periodicity. I have, however, discovered out-cropping hints and suggestions in Yico, Bishop Butler, Ar- thur Butler, Isaac Taylor, McCosh, Robertson Spencer, D'Israeli, Esquirol, Gillie, ITallam, Guizot, Goethe, Neander, Whewell, Bulwer, Holmes and Emerson. But, every thoughtful person has some knowledge of this law, which, like the angel's visit, brings a message, and then disappears. Says an eminent physician, " The subject of the Periodic Law revives the impressions which I have received from time to time of the instrumentality of that law in the seasons ; the periodical and destructive visitations of the elements ; epidemics of dis- ease, mental, moral and financial." The Phy- sician discovers " a strange and inexplicable Periodicity in the physiological and patholo- 8 THE PERIODIC LAW. gical manifestations." The President of a law school writes, that though unable to present any authoritative treatise, he has yet traced this law in the study of history, and asks: " Does not Shakspeare express the same idea, 6 There is a tide in the affairs of men?' " But, who would think of finding this scientific prin- ciple in a President's message ? thus : " The law of demand and supply is as unerring that which regulates the tides of the ocean and indeed, currency, like the tides, has it ebbs and flows throughout the commerce world." It is remarkable, that while such advances are made in physical science, while geographers explore Africa, so little is known of our own Thought kingdom. Science tames the electric spark ; astronomers predict the returning comet ; but who ventures to determine the laws of Thought ? and yet the field is within us. NATURAL OBJECTS TYPICAL. Keflecting minds employ physical laws as ladders for higher truths. Each slighted object, like the prophet in the wilderness, points up- wards ; and should any plant or animal seem a failure, that failure is in the observer. Watch ■ it, as Hugh Miller did the rock, and it con- THE PERIODIC LAW. 9 fesses an undeviating law. At first the earth was chaotic, but at each ascent, through differ- ent strata, design is more clear. Shall this order cease when we ascend from the natural to the spiritual ? MAN THE TRUE CHRONOMETER. The more complicated the functions the more valuable the result. Observe the Polyp, and the increase of organs, until man, the highest, predominates. The vegetable and animal world unconsciously show the change of seasons, but man is the time-keeper: He first constructs the rude clepsydra, and then advances to the precise chronometer, and may construct an instrument still more delicate. Shall man impose the Periodic Law on the im- passive metal, and he himself be exempt from its operation ? The chronometer is typical of that Periodicity, which we know not now, but shall, through investigation, know hereafter. DOES CHANCE EXIST ? Men have deified chance, and, like the gamester, risked all on her throw ; but science has gradually substituted law for caprice, and ascertained cycles of loss and gain in hazard- ous games. Pestilence has lost its virulence. 10 THE PEKIODIC LAW. In agriculture, finance, war and storms, and in great social questions, comparative certainty has been attained. But, in the realm of mind, ' chance seems impregnable. And shall this continue ? There is no chance in the sparrow's fall, or in the wandering comet, and we antici- pate a firmament of mind more beauteous than the starry splendor. "The few who have wisdom and firmness to prosecute through life the great work of self-improvement will value hints of this kind, which, indeed, are disregarded only because we live from day to day by chance, and forget that life is as much an art, governed by its own laws, as the most complicated profession by which that life is maintained." IS THE NOVELTY OF TRUTH OBJECTIONABLE ? Does the slow progress or the obscurity of this law discourage us ? Let past discoveries reply. Let the wild winds and storms answer. Science knows not the weather law ; but science declares : " I shall see it, but not now ; I shall behold it, but not nigh." What if we shall anticipate mental disturbance as readily as the coming storm, and fortify a day of weakness by special vigilance ? THE PERIODIC LAW. 11 CHAPTER II. 113 THE WEATHER^ CAPRICE. The uncertainty of the weather, though proverbial, is only apparent. Compare each ]day, week, month, season, with previous cor- respondents, and you will not call the weather capricious. The average temperature, the 'quantity of rain and snow, the fine and wet (days, the gales of wind and thunder storms lare almost exactly the same every year. There is the extreme cold of early January; the January thaw; the hot days at the end of February ; the blustering winds of March ; the light showers of April; the warm weather |near the end of April ; the cold first of May, ifollowed by the long northeast storm, and then beautiful weather ; the chilly first or second !day of June; the intensely hot June days; ! the chilly beginning of July, and so on through the year. We can almost say that every marked circumstance of the weather occurs every year about the same time, and several successive Sundays are precisely alike. " He 12 THE PERIODIC LAW. measures the drops of rain as the dust of the balance, and each year has its allotted ration." STOKM SIGNALS. " The establishment of storm signals in this country seems now to be certain. When a storm has commenced in a certain direction, the first telegraph station notifies all the other stations hundreds of miles in advance. Three guns are fired at each county seat announcing the storm. The interval between the first and second in- dicates the Hnd of storm. That between the second and third the direction. An interval between a third and fourth the distance ; thus allowing a mile to a second, an interval of two minutes shows a distance of 120 miles, and then on our coasts these signals are repeated to notify the homeward bound vessels." Had such a system existed in America, our newly- acquired island might have experienced less dis- aster and our lost national vessels been spared. Had this system been continued by the Eng- lish Admiralty, no less than four vessels, with many lives, might have escaped. [On the au- thority of General Sabine, the People's Maga- zine announces the resumption of the system.] Storm signals, like other improvements, sug- gest the inquiry, " Cannot the shriek of the THE PERIODIC LAW. 13 locomotive be more utilized ?" At present the whistle says, " Stop ; Start ;" but there might be at least as much information given as by our fire alarms, and locomotives have " some words" without collisions. INUNDATIONS. Science defines the Mississippi River as run- ning south to the Gulf, and then returning to j its sources in a cycle of vapor — " The waters j above the waters." Now, if by certain though i partially discovered laws we may predict the | coming storm, why not with equal facility an- j ticipate a flood ? Mitchell says that the bends | of the Mississippi are struck with the precision I of a compass, and boatmen estimate their pro- : gress not by miles but by bends. The swamp !' land of the Sacramento valley is said to over- flow periodically, and I have reason to believe that the Susquehanna and Ohio have vast floods every eighteen or nineteen years. In the val- ley of Egypt, Nilometers recorded the river law for ages ; but with us the science of fluvi- ' ology has been overlooked, and yet its connec- tion with meteorology is such that any fact discovered in the one must elucidate the other. " Sir Samuel Baker, during his four years travel in Africa, has solved two great prob- 14 THE PERIODIC LAW. lems : The discovery of the source of the Nile ' and the cause of its annual inundation. A de- ficient overflow at once produces famine. The great famine in Joseph's time, which lasted seven years, was doubtless caused by a seven years' failure of the inundation ; an occur- rence to which there is an exact parallel in historical times. The inundation is caused by the addition to the constant stream of the periodical rains which fall upon the hill coun- try of Abyssinia." In building a bridge over the Great Miami River, time, labor and expense were greatly saved by telegraphic communications through the entire Miami basin, thus anticipating floods hours before they reached the bridge. Might not this application of science be em- ployed on every large river, thereby saving vast quantities of lumber and other valuables an- nually swept away ? Recently the water from Ottawa Lake, in Monroe County, Michigan, entirely disap- peared. The Coldwater Gazette says : " The lake, or rather its bed or graveyard, presents a novel scene ; some say the water will soon re- turn by the same source of its departure — Lake Erie. About seven years ago Ottawa Lake THE PERIODIC LAW. 15 departed in the same way, and old residents say that this is a periodical recurrence." INTERNAL OSCILLATIONS. There is reason to believe that internal dis- turbances of the earth are as periodic as ex- ternal phenomena. In deep mining, from the hours of twelve at night until eight in the morning, water falls where none is seen during the day. The volume in the wheel is percep- tibly increased, the atmosphere is charged with gases which prevent the lights burning, and small particles of earth and rock, as in the Chicago tunnel, are observed to fall from the tops of the drives. Whether this phenomenon is attributable to the -diurnal motion of the earth or other causes, is worthy of consideration. Similar to this is the disturbance of the At- lantic telegraph, whose electric pulse beats slowly or rapidly in certain recurring hours ; and physicians remark that births and deaths are more frequent by night than by day. 16 THE PERIODIC LAW. CHAPTEE III. PERIODIC HARVEST FAILURES. While in a military hospital I had oppor- tunities of investigating the phases of mental emotions, and I was led to suspect the Univer- sality of the Periodic Law. This principle, de- duced from a number of facts, threw increased light on the facts themselves, just as the as- cending dew, condensed on the mountains, trickles down and clarifies the very lake whence it emanated, (a cycle for ages unknown,) or as the law of gravitation applied to the planets revealed a more exact system of longitudes, thus giving increased security to commerce. But that which particularly arrested my at- tention was a list in the Paris Constitutionelle of the periods of scarcity in France during three centuries, deducing thereby a septennial failure, and concluding thus : " It is plainly owing to some law of nature yet undiscovered that these unfruitful seasons recur at compa- ratively regular periods." This undiscovered law was the very one then engaging my inves- THE PERIODIC LAW. 17 tigations, and I soon found similar facts, viz. : Four droughts in Montgomery County, Mary- land, at intervals of sixteen years ; in parts of Illinois a similar recurrence in seven years ; in Delaware a change in the peach harvest in twenty years, and in Texas a general expecta- tion of abundance among the old settlers every twenty years. A farmer in the San Joaquin Valley writes to the Farmers' Club of New- York, " that in that region there are periodical seasons of 1 drought, not of months but of years ;" and his \ experience of California goes to show that the ( seasons of fertility and sterility come by periods l of years. Bayard Taylor thus, writes : " The richer I bottom lands of Thuringia have been cultivated | with the interruptions of war for at least I two thousand years ; until recently, however, ' the system of farming was very primitive : shallow ploughing would soon have exhausted the land but for constant and generous ma- nuring, and the relief which comes from rota- tion of crops. Some of the farmers reckon five and some seven years. In the latter case, the land lying one year fallow, as the proper cycle." I further understood that there was a sep* 18 THE PERIODIC LAW. tennial failure in the East India cotton crop, and that our own Sea Island cotton was septennially devastated by the caterpillar, a fact paralleled by our seventeen year locusts. I might further suggest that the septennial fallow of the Jewish law may have been this very periodicity, written ages previously on the ground itself. The Department of Agri- culture at Washington published these facts, calling the attention of our American farmers to seasons remarkable for droughts or rain, scanty or abundant harvests, and adding, that if such law be ascertained, " a valuable saving of time, labor and crops would result to the farmers and nation." I have been surprised that in agricultural publications there is so little regard to general principles. Lord Bacon gathered all his agri- cultural books and burned them, because they contained only the empirical. Closely allied with this law is the beauteous system of compensation, as, when a failure in Europe is marked by abundance here ; or, " while the weather was so unfavorable for corn planting, it was highly favorable for wheat. During those wet, cold weeks, the wheat plant grew very slowly, and in pro- tecting itself, it sent out new shoots, which THE PERIODIC LAW. 19 now are rising to sight, and adding to a stand i which, by reason of the winter snows, was already good." Thus a cold climate, giving a slow growth and creating a self-protection, | must, in a series of years, yield more wealth than a rapidly maturing climate. Thus the sower still goes out to sow. INSURANCE. Man is designed to be his brother's keeper, and the system of insurance against fire is based on annually recurring destruction — the application of the higher idea. While the uniformity of fires is well known, conflagra- tions wide-spread, startling and apparently abnormal, are subject to the same law. A century ago an English clergyman extended insurance from property to life, and from the apparent chaos of mortality deduced a law so reliable, that millions repose under its shelter ; and more recently another advance includes all accidents, and doubtless should wars con- tinue, a small reservation from the soldier's pay would furnish an income in case of wounds or death more beneficial than the precarious bounty. But is this principle exhausted ? A time is near when the harvests of grain and 20 THE PERIODIC LAW. crops of fruit shall be insured to the farmer and planter against all accidents of the weather. I have since been informed that there are such societies in England ; and a bill before Congress proposes that insurance be effected on naval officers, by such a deduction of salary as mentioned above, and which, in behalf of soldiers, I ventured to recommend to the Sec- retary of War in 1865. I was told by an officer of an extensive rail- road, that accidents were singularly concur- rent. For a long time there is an exemption, and then disasters accumulate in a week ; and what is more singular, they run into types — collisions, explosions, bridges — precisely as the prevailing epidemics of disease or crime, On the British roads, during four years, th number of killed was respectively 216, 184, 222, 221. With such uniformity in accidents, and even in earthquakes, (according to M. Alexis Perry,) is it wonderful that insurance against accidents has become popular ? And if law comprehends such abnormal events, what can escape its control ? and can the in- surance principle stop until it merges in that great moral association which protects all ful- filling its conditions ? e THE PERIODIC LAW. 21 I THE SCIENCE OF INSURANCE. The process of discovery is nearly the same ! in every department of nature. The perturba- tion of one planet led Le Verrier to suspect (another, and consequent investigations dis- closed the locality of the mysterious stranger. Thus the best actuaries account for clustering accidents and conflagrations by some unknown law, which the New-York State Superinten- dent traces in fires the most devastating ; and • the most advanced educators attribute the un- 1 accountable vivacity and depression of classes to some undeveloped Periodicity — a law, which I though not absolutely new, becomes relatively I so by scientific advances. Before investigation, nothing seemed more abnormal than disasters by sea and railway ; and yet as the amount of rain in any given year is almost the . same with the general average, so the amount of marine losses is equally uniform, and thus with conflagrations apparently abnormal. Says the Insurance Monitor, " The extensive fires occurring in T,roy and Quebec, have sternly impressed on us the fact that epidemic periods have not passed away, but are as likely to occur in the future as in the past, and suggest whether 22 THE PERIODIC LAW. there be not some law governing and control- ling, not only these disastrous recurrences, but also the great average of losses in ordinary business." These facts are indications of that new and beautiful law ; and just as the ex- plorer found a continent by the premonitions of strange birds and waifs of unknown wood, so by the collection of these facts, life's rugged ocean becomes a highway. M. Quetelet declares, "that in every thing which concerns crime, the same numbers occur with a constancy that cannot be mistaken ; and this even with those crimes which seem quite independent of human foresight, as mur- ders, which are generally committed after quarrels apparently casual. Nevertheless, we know from experience, that there is the same number of murders annually, and that the very instruments employed are in the same proportion." Later inquiries develop the ex- traordinary fact, that the recurrence of crime can be more clearly predicted than the physi- cal laws of disease and destruction of our bodies. Thus the number accused in France, from 1826 to 1844, was by a singular coinci- dence about equal to the male deaths that took place in Paris during the same period ; only, the fluctuations in crime were smaller than THE PERIODIC LAW. 23 i .those of mortality, and each separate offence : obeyed the same law of periodic repetition. THE LAW OF ACCIDENTS. " Accident Insurance, whether applied to I loss of life or personal injury, rests on the same basis as Life Insurance. It is uncertain j jto the individual, but certain as to the mass. Nothing could be more uncertain than the ^selection of a single death by drowning within jtwelve months ; and yet it is certain that in |France 3,700 persons will from that cause and in that time lose their lives. " The statistics of England, France, Ger- many and the United States prove, that to 'every person accidentally killed, 70 receive I disabilities averaging 20 days. Such observa- tions determine the rates covering the hazard ; for, as $650 insured as compensation for per- sonal injury, is to $5,000 insured against acci- dental death, so these sums are to the pre- miums charged, assuming that the losses by accidental death and personal injury will be ! equal. Witness the operation of these laws in i the Travelers : : 1867. Jan. 1. Losses from personal injury, $201,785 12 " " " " accidental death, 195,990 00 1 1868. " " " " personal injury, 372,882 32 " " " " accidental death, 371,225 00 24 THE PERIODIC LAW. . Could any law be more clearly proven by results ? Doubtless, a more complete classifi- cation of various risks will discover " truths of immense social and political importance." THE MORAL OF INSURANCE. Insurance is most immediately connected with this life, but, like the bow of promise, it embraces and illustrates the life immortal. The preparation for a limited future intensifies and brings nearer the eternal. Show us a land where revelation is not received and there insurance is unknown, and wherever a future life is most realized, there this principle most permeates the community. The kingdom of God is a universal assur- ance, and if its members perform the condi- tions they shall be compensated. Nor is this merely the promise of the future ; it is the realization of the present. Behold the Pente- costal establishment of this Society. The abundance of the rich compensated the poor — no man lacked ; and St. Paul compares the Church to the " whole body, which fitly joined together and compacted by that which every ■joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body to the edifying of itself in THE PEEIODIC LAW. 25 J love." Every discovery of man has been long I anticipated by God. The spider may enter a 'f -caveat against the assumed invention of the balloon— the life-preserving projectile and the finest silk loom. The improvement in lenses icame from the study of the human eye; the I foundation of the Eddystone light-house origi- i nated from the root of a tree ; the heating pro- cess by iron conduits is the Gulf Stream in I miniature ; photography approximates the i image on the retina, and so the discovery of ' Life Insurance was the faint reflection of God's great insurance law. Since then it has ad- vanced from fire to life, from life to accidents, and who can tell its limitation ? Insurance is an advance from the material to the moral, or rather changes the material into the moral, and each new advance more fully assures those who seek first God's kingdom and His righteousness. The word Insure is not found in the New Testament, but the idea abounds. " God will judge the world by Christ Jesus, wherefore he hath given assurance unto all men in that he liath raised him from the dead." Assurance, in the Greek, signifies faith, from which we infer that faith means not merely trust in a personal Saviour, but the assurance of a king- 3 26 THE PERIODIC LAW. dom ; and as the day star ushers in the sun rays, so does .insurance declare His kingdom in our very midst. Conformably with these truths are the words of Dean Trench : " The earthly relationship is but a lower form of the heavenly, on which it rests, and of which it is the utterance." The Parables called attention to spiritual facts which underlie all processes of nature, all in- stitutions of society, and which, though un- seen, are the ground and support of these processes and institutions. THE PERIODIC LAW. 27 CHAPTER IY. THE SCIENCE OF PUBLICATION. The universality of this law suggests a new subject, viz. : the Science of Publication. From feeble beginnings the Periodic issues ;of the Press have reached an importance de- manding the recognition of science. The press has become a department of government, and investigation into this, as in other fields, 'will discover a regular ebb and flow in sub- scriptions and advertisements. The intelli- Igent Editor will appreciate the substitution of certain law for the caprice of chance. MEDICAL SCIENCE. A distinguished physician, in the British and Foreign Medical Review, thus writes : I " Experience shows that the physician and his I remedy are useful only when they act in ac- cordance with the laws of the constitution and ! the intentions of nature ; hence, in chronic, | and even in acute diseases, the most effective ! part of the treatment is generally the hygienic — 28 • THE PERIODIC LAW. placing the organs under the most favorable circumstances for the adequate exercise of their respective functions. There are forms of dis- ease in which a determinate nature and course cannot easily be traced ; but there are many others in which the natural course is as obvi- ous as the sun. Take the familiar example of cow-pox, small-pox, fever or ague. The dis- ease is regulated by fixed laws, so clearly that any medical book describes accurately the symptoms on given days of its progress. So with measles, scarlatina and many other acute affections, and less clearly, but perceptibly, with gout, rheumatism and inflammation. All of these go through a regular course in a shorter or longer time, and when every thing thus regularly proceeds, the constitution is safer than when some unusual accident has in- terrupted the natural progress. The Creator has perfected all the arrangements for the cure, and our sole business should be to give those arrangements full play. Every one knows that a severe cold will run through a course of increase, maturity and decline ; even a common boil runs through its regular stages, and if we apply to one stage the remedy belonging to another, the result is injurious. Instead of trying to cut short pleurisy, the moment we THE PERIODIC LAW. ' 29 'learn its existence we must respect its natural 'direction, and reserve our means to carry it 'through the regular stages. " Thus must cures be more numerous and complete. But the public must cease to tempt their medical attendant to have ' something done ;' they must wait patiently, to see nature, ' with the proper negative and positive medical skill, regain her healthy action." THE TYPE OF DISEASE. The Pall Mall Gazette calls attention to a 'remarkable fact, stated by Dr. F. J. Brown, of Eochester, (England :) " Formerly the pea- sants were bled once or twice a year, losing sixteen ounces, and walking home without in- convenience. Of late years the same men and their sons have fainted from the loss of from four to eight ounces, and so the practice has been dropped." Dr. B., who seems to be a very careful observer, thinks that a change of type is periodic. Since the spring of 1862, the plethoric type is gaining on the nervous ; " Men can lose blood now who could not a few years ago." " The nervous type," he asserts, " came in with the first cholera epide- mic, and has lasted about the third of a cen- tury. If the nervous type disappears, we may 30 THE PERIODIC LAW. hope that cholera will go with it. But the whole question of cycles of disease can scarcely yet be handled scientifically." THE WANDERING COMETS OF THE MIND. The return of seasons and the growth of plants indicate nature's unerring cycle, but in the planetary system this law is illustrated, and time is kept to the second. For centuries comets seemed an exception, but they more fully proclaim this law than the revolutions of Saturn — and thus with mental disturbances — the comets of the mind. Let them undergo the same inspection, and they shall be equally intelligible. " The mind, like the universe, has evidently its pervading law ; and the soul, like the solar system, gravitates according to the plan of balancing forces and recurring cycles." Says Dr. Holmes, " keep any line of knowledge ten years, and another line will in- tersect it." THE PERIODIC LAW. 31 CHAPTER V. DISEASE AND INSANITY. Nor are we left to conjecture, for we find that diseases and plagues have their time of 'visitations, and fevers are periodically inter- imittent. The physician can predict the crisis. And even in Insanity, where all order seems (defied, Periodicity is recognised. Derange- : ment, intelligent on this point, corroborates | the law, and Esquirol found it in Idiocy. Shall i madness have its method and sanity have none? [Shall reason understand every subject but itself, and surrender to chance ? In a hospital, the tendency of patients to suicide was epidemical; and this, not from the contagion of example, as great care was taken -to keep such information from each inmate ; and an intelligent physician has remarked days 1 when there was simultaneous excitement, with consequent difficulty in management. He mitigated such recurrence by a diet less stimu- lating. At a meeting of the British Medical Asso- ll 32 THE PERIODIC LAW. ciation, in Chester, 1866, (to which Dr. C. C. Cox was delegated by a similar meeting in this country,) an address was made by Professor Hughes Bennett, from which the following extract is made : " This mutual relation of the ll sciences has led to generalizations of the highest importance to our knowledge of vital action both in health and disease. Thus, it having been shown by Grove, that the various phys- ical forces, such as heat, light, electricity, gravity and chemical action, are all correla- tive ; it soon became apparent not only that there was a similar relation between the vital forces, such as those governing growth, nutri- tion, contractility and excitability, but also between these and the physical forces. It has further been shown, that just as matter is in- destructible, onty changing its condition, so is there a conservation of force which only alters its form. In the same manner that heat, light, electricity, gravity and chemical action are capable of being perpetuated in an incessant round, one to the other, so we must regard growth, contractility, sensibility and even the exercise of mind, as only varieties in form of that chemical force generated in nutrition, as this in its turn is only an altered manifesta- tion of" some other force." THE PERIODIC LAW. 33 ISOLATION REMEDIAL. Memory's cycle, in derangement irresistible, is, in a sound mind, controllable. The recol- lection of some painful event, like a physical ftouch, wakes the midnight hour, and then Ivanishes in the engagements of the day. At might it returns at intervals so expanded that ;we ask : " How came that long lost thought ?" •But the law is as clear as when the sore atten- tion was first tied to the shock. Hence, to •obviate derangement, we break the cycle of (previous associations. Inebriate Asylums may 'show how far this isolation succeeds, but there is an historical fact highly suggestive. The ' 'Mutineers of the "Bounty" abandoned their officers, and escaping to Piteairn's Island, be- i came so profligate as to threaten their own destruction ; but thus secluded, without any ligament to the purer past except an old Prayer book, they became wonderfully reformed, and when discovered, their piety shamed their English visitors. Pitcairn shows that truth is not only stranger, but stronger than fiction, where it has a fair field. THE CIRCULATION OF THOUGHT. The blood circulated in periodic cycles from 34 THE PERIODIC LAW. man's creation, and yet was undiscovered until 1620. Shall the physical heart obey this law, while the moral pulsations are abandoned to chance ? Then, instead of looking up from Nature, we should look down, the body yield to the lily, and the gem pale before its casket. But we rise from the natural, and some future Harvey may deduce a periodicity far superior to any physical law, and the dis- coverer exclaim : " When I consider the firma- ment of the mind, what is man that thou art mindful of him ?" Men may wonder why such discovery was so long delayed, and the Prophet dyed in blood so long misunderstood. Since Harvey's day the microscope has dis- covered that each particle of blood is a disc or globule, a planet in the veins, with its orbit in regular cycles; with its day and night in the bright arterial or dark venous. What next? Shall blood, the sustainer of thought, be thus minutely periodic, and thought itself have no cycle ? POPULAR COMMOTIONS. " The noise of the waves and the madness of the people" respond to each other ; they are under the same law, and hence popular com- motions never surprise the thoughtful. Bishop THE PERIODIC LAW. 35 [Butler thought that nations, like individuals, ,iad their seasons of derangement, and Mr. Burke predicted the French Revolution long oreviously. If the law applies to individuals, much more to communities, and how valuable its ascertainment. The Highlands were for benturies nuclei of dissension, until the gov- ?rnnient, by enlistment, changed a positive vil into a positive good. 36 THE PERIODIC LAW. CHAPTEK VI. EDUCATION. A teacher of large experience stated that in every eight years his school became so reduced as to threaten failure, but by steady con- tinuance its prosperity regularly returned. How encouraging this law to every one de- pending on numbers for support. It is as the regulator in mechanical motion. The faithful laborer cannot miss either the Nadir or the Zenith. The same popular wave laves the Capitol and the Tarpeian rock. Every busi- ness or profession is held by two opposing forces, and it approaches or recedes from the central sun, thus alternating summer and winter. " At evening time it shall be light." " Fortune you say flies from us ; she but circles Like the fleet sea-bird round the fowler's skiff, Lost in the mist one moment — and the next, Brushing the white sail with her whiter wing, As if to court the aim ; Experience watches And has her on the wheel." THE PERIODIC LAW. 37 The mind is like a phial ; fill it and the super- fluity is lost ; and the mind itself is injured by the pressure, and even when the educator has graduated instruction to various capacities, he must anticipate a periodic expansion and contraction of the mind itself, so that the lesson to-day mastered is to-morrow unmanageable. Physical causes, as desks, ventilation, have inbdoubtless their influence, but we must consider moral conditions. A scholar excels his class- mates; the teacher and parents are greatly jencouraged. They praise the model, but how Jsoon is the tree withered. Attention droops lefelinto listlessness. Cannot science, which de- fects disease in the minute spores, discover dmoral deficiencies, wasting the memory and njthwarting the best devised educational sys- item? Are not moral epidemics as periodic as ^physical ? This mental and moral cycle de- mands thoughtful study. In an essay on " Unconscious Tuition," Rev. Dr. Huntington asks, if" the dark days at school are totally inexplicable and inevitable phenomena ?" He believes that " whenever Physiology and Psychology are as exactly understood as the mathematical relations of Astronomy, these freaks of temperament may be predicted like the eclipse of the sun ; and is ' 4 38 THE PERIODIC LAW. not temptation itself subject to spiritual laws, which we may hope to comprehend as we have deeper fellowship with Him who hath put all things under his feet?" These new and high thoughts are the harbingers of a day dawn, and we agree with Professor Henry, that " the laws which govern the growth and operation of the human mind are as definite and as general in their application as those which apply to the material universe ; and it is evident that any true system of education must be based upon a knowledge and applica- tion of those laws." RELIGIOUS DEPRESSIONS. Religious seasons are not an arbitrary ap- pointment, but a demand of our nature. The Sabbath was made for man, and as the planets revolve round their sun, so the heart around its creator, embracing its shortest day — u !N"e- fastus dies," and then its summer gladness without sunset. We thus may solve many difficulties in biography, and learn why Brain erd and Mar- ty n were so alternately depressed and elevated. Is there a special grief or joy ? Mark if a year or month does not bring its counterpart. JS r or is the darkest day uncompensated. The gloom THE PERIODIC LAW. 39 : of November brings the spring ; the fall of the leaf heralds the new-born bud, and the moral fallow reaps a harvest. " Giant Despair had doubtless made an end of them, but that he fell into one of his fits,