Q. Is water the best medicine in a case of Disease?

A. The human body is never healed by any one agent or element. This book will impart a correct knowledge of the best general treatment for diseased conditions.

Q. Is it possible to live in this world entirely free from bodily ailments? A. No. The most careful and obedient person will not always escape slight functional disturbances.

Q. Why is this so?

A. Because the globe is yet young, and untamed or uncultivated. Its water, soils, plants, animals, and air, are not yet sufficiently refined and purified to prevent disease.

Q. Will the time ever come on earth when Disease shall be no more?

A. Yes. And even "Death" will one day be swallowed up in victory.

Q. How will this be possible?

A. There will be no "Disease" when the globe shall have become perfectly subdued and gardenized by man; and there will be "no Death" when the earth's inhabitants shall perfectly realize the nearness of the Summer Land.

Q. What is the common object of life?

A. Happiness.

Q. Why are not more persons happy?

A. Because the mass of mankind err as to the true means of happiness.

Q. What are the true means of happiness?

A. This all-important question is earnestly analyzed, and, we trust, philosophically answered, in the four hundred and twenty pages which compose this volume. And to the vast Brotherhood of mankind, therefore, the contents of this book are fraternally dedicated by THE AUTHOR.

NEW YORK, October 15th, 1861.

CHAPTER I.

THE PEARLY GATES OF SCIENCE.

NATURE's harmonious, eternal heart, is incessantly throbbing with the almighty energy of omnipotent principles. Sweetly bloom the progressive truths and immortal beauties of the Infinite. They come gracefully out from their invisible sanctuary, and shine steadily and lovingly into the gloomy abysses of igno

rance.

As a brief definition, we may say that Science is a knowledge of Facts and Forces. What is Art, then, but the intellectual and manual power to control such forces for the gratification and benefit of mankind? There is a plain difference between Art and Science. The latter is the embodiment of intellectual discoveries; the former is the archangel which puts theory into practice, for the world's permanent good.

If Science is the glory of mind, then Art is its crown of immortality. But mankind are admonished to travel for forty years in the wilderness of facts not only, but to traverse and reverse their contemplations of the Universe forever, in quest of the countless treasures which lie within the bosom of the Summer Land. When the pilgrim arrives at the goal of Scientific Knowledge, no matter what path he may have pursued, the angels bring forth and place upon his brow a royal diadem, in these days called "COMMON SENSE!"

Such a mind feels that Facts are the temporary, yet neces sary, stepping-stones of individual progress. Facts are the hard currency of the intellect. They systematize its operations, demolish its flickering superstitions, and promote the refining and useful Arts.

Those who would attend the Academy of right-thinking must take primary lessons at the feet of Scientific truths. Facts in geology, facts in chemistry, facts in physiology, facts in history, facts in mechanism, facts in spiritualism-facts, facts, from and of every side in the rolling Universe-are the first firm friends of Common Sense, and the most trustworthy intercessors between mind and matter. Genius and transcendent talents, even reason and intuition, are next to impossible, except through obedience to the gospel of Facts.

But the lesson of Facts is impressive and startling in its sublimity. This lessons is, that facts are never finalities! They will let you dogmatize only for a brief season. They neither begin nor terminate in and of themselves. They crop out from a hidden soil, and jut over into some invisible world. To the philosopher they are but palpable shadows thrown upon the soaring mountains of thought. They indicate the existence of invisible substances. They send divinest dispatches to every mind, saying: "Seek further, if thou wouldst behold the Principles of the Infinite."

Excelsior is the song of every fact.

Beauteous flower

facts bedeck the far-spreading prairies of vision. But the fire-chemist can banish them into the boundless ocean of imponderables. These imponderables invite you "still higher " among the impersonals. These impersonals, which only the exquisite sense of intuition can appreciate, are the Principles. of Nature. But it is just as true to say that they are the Will-powers of Father God.

Thus Facts lead away into Principles, which are the rest and delight of the harmonious mind. We are, therefore, admonished to observe and follow the lead of Scientific Facts. Men should teach their children to know some facts not traditional, but which are absolutely and unequivocally Scientific. Otherwise the mind is chaotic, confused, uncertain, and exposed to the epidemical influence of priests and superstition. Ministers who believe only in the facts of tradition-who refuse the living facts of a living Age-are certain to take possession of minds not fortified with absolute Facts. The drifting affections of the ignorant are wafted by every wind of doctrine. A few well-ascertained and positive facts in Magnetism, for instance, have proved "an anchor to the soul, both sure and steadfast;' while a neighboring bark has been driven by the gusty breathings of a prayer-meeting upon the rocks of Bigotry and Despair.

The priest-paralyzed Galileo was not killed, because a shield of facts hung between him and his persecutors. The Alpine storms of priestcraft could not drive him ashore. His mind stood firmly upon a foundation of astronomic facts, and amid the deafening thunders of the Vatican he cried-" the world does move!" In like manner we may record the progressive development of all Sciences and Arts, as also of their masters. The burning breath of an hundred theological Saharas could not put out the eyes of Newton. Neither did the world of frowning superstition weaken the energies of Spinoza, Kant, Gall, Spurzheim, Combe, and more familiar minds, who have wrought so bravely for the advancement of common sense and mankind.

Put a few positive Facts before your child's mind, not dryly and severely, as though each fact was a "stubborn thing," fit only for headstrong boys, but gently teach your child facts and truths of the world in which we live, and thus fortify the reason