SOCIETY OF ANGELS DESIRE, THROUGH AGENCY OF ANOTHER AND MORE INFERIOR SOCIETY, TO COMMUNICATE IN VARIOUS WAYS TO THE

EARTH'S INHABITANTS. Another, which he considered the most important, he interpreted to mean: "LET ALL THE NATIONS BE

GATHERED TOGETHER, AND LET THE PEOPLE BE ASSEMBLED; LET THEM BRING FORTH THEIR WITNESSES, THAT THEY MAY BE JUSTIFIED; Or LET THEM LEARN THESE THINGS, AND SAY IT IS TRUTH."

In these proceedings, which strike one at once as both mysterious and puerile, devout believers may find something to admire and applaud; but there are few who would not turn away from the pages which contain these statements, with a feeling of contempt, or a strong sense of the ludicrous, or who would not be tempted, by a glance at these passages, to cast the book into the pile of obsolete trash, produced in a more superstitious period of the world's history; or, who would not thereby be tempted to remove the whole subject of spiritual communication from the realm of debatable science, to that of obsolete fable.

The sublime reverence, with which we have been accustomed to regard the spiritual world, is shocked by this puerile representation of the subject-the paltry messages written on a turnip or on the jacket of an idle boy. It is not congenial to the sentiments of cultivated minds, to recognize that as an emanation from the SpiritLand, which is below the level of terrestrial dignity and intelligence. If the communications, purporting to be from spiritual sources, really emanated from beings of almost limitless powers of percep tion, whose time is unencumbered by the plodding cares of earthwho freely survey the entire range of history and of science-who travel from planet to planet-communicate with angels, and survey the deeds and thoughts of men-it is difficult to suppose that any communication proceeding from this elevated source, should indicate neither knowledge nor strength of mind, nor aught that is above the imagination of hysterical females and ignorant mesmeric subjects.

From Mr. Davis we had a right to expect something better. With a fluent pen, an impressible temperament, and high powers of clairvoyance, it might have been expected that his communications with the spirit world would have brought us into contact with some portion of the light, the knowledge, the wisdom, and the grandeur of thought which we attribute to the most elevated, disembodied spirits. But such anticipations are sadly disappointed in the present volume. The highest communications which he professes to give from the spirit land are but little more than vague rhapsodies, such as any intelligent mesmeric subject might pour forth, by the page, under the influence of the clairvoyant condition. The communications, for example, from "the pure and highly enlightened spirit of James Victor Wilson," are in a most enthusi

astic strain.

"O what gorgeous Truths-what celestial Principles-what Divine Powers and holy attributes uphold the Universe! 1 have seen innumerable beauties, and expe

rienced unutterable joy. I have gazed upon numberless firmaments; and have become wealthy in the mighty blessings which they unfold.

"I have had my being unrolled by the spontaneous workings of Eternal Principles, as the sun unrolls the flower; and now I come to divide with thee the happiness which I experience-the inexpressible riches of my endlessly progressive life! Yea, truly, there are no bounds to this glorious Universe; there are no limits to the Infinitude in which it rolls!"

Yet, notwithstanding the amplitude of Mr. Wilson's knowledge' of celestial principles, Divine powers, and the glorious universe, he gives forth not the smallest particle of knowledge. It is difficult to conceive that a highly benevolent and intellectual spirit should enjoy the powers and opportunities here claimed, and be able to make set speeches to an intelligent clairvoyant reporter, and yet be unable or unwilling to give the slightest evidence of the truth of its pretensions. A candid and benevolent spirit, possessing such an amount of knowledge, with a faithful listener and ready reporter, could not fail to communicate something of interest or utility to mankind-something that would tend to verify the following sketch:

"When the human soul passes from earth into the second sphere, it is inclined, at first, to indulge in the gratification of its strongest love or impulse; but unless it be a pure love, a good (or rather a right-directed) impulse, then the means of its gratification-I rejoice to say-are not to be found within the territories of the Spirit-` Land-are not to be found within the range of all those things by which the initiated spirit is moved to learn the immutable principles of Love and Wisdom, and to live a life of eternal obedience to the laws of God, which are unchangeable-universalharmonious-infinite! But when the human soul enters the Spirit-World with good passions (or affections) and impulses, then-and only then-is their gratification easy and unrestricted; and progress may be made in one single direction for centuries. Some spirits become highly educated in that particular truth or science for which they feel the most absorbing sympathy and interest, while respecting other truths and sciences they may be comparatively destitute of information. For instance-in the great truths pertaining to comparative anatomy and physiology, as unfolded in the animated kingdom of Nature-the same great principles and truths, reaching far and wide in every direction, embracing the form and functions of the universe-in all these you will find GALEN, and a host of similarly constituted minds, richly educated and accomplished. But you will not find MOSES, or ISAIAH, or ST. JOHN, possessing the same high knowledge of these scientific truths. This class of minds, having a strong love for moral truths even while on the earth, continue still progressing and attaining in moral and spiritual directions. These great and highly accomplished minds have advanced as far in searching out moral truth as GALEN has progressed in his investigations of scientific truth. Their goal is onward; and, therefore, it is not reasonable to conclude that they, the great moral students—the alumni of the spheres -avail themselves of the electrical vibrations whereby to communicate their thoughts to congenial minds on the earth; neither would they be likely to understand and skilfully manage the newly-discovered means and instrumentalities of communication as well as those spirits whose chief attraction and education consist in scientific researches. Neither suppose they themselves should communicate with man in this rudimental manner, would it be wisdom to ask ISAIAH a scientific question, or to interrogate GALEN with regard to merely moral subjects, because-though their responses might be truthful—their style of answering would be consistent with the proclivity and pursuit of their minds, and the inquirer might possibly receive a wrong impression."

Upon the whole, I regret to say that these spiritual communications, adduced by Mr. Davis, so far from giving any additional clearness or certainty to the subject of intercommunication between the material and spiritual worlds, tend only "to make confusion worse confounded," by increasing doubt and by giving to the whole subject an indefinite and visionary character.

The communication from Dr. Franklin, although more definite and precise in statement, is little more satisfactory than that from Wilson. Mr. Davis professes to have discovered the origin of spiritual communications, and to have received "by direct influx or impression from the highly accomplished spirit of Dr. Franklin," a narrative of the manner in which this new telegraph, between heaven and earth, was established. The speech of Dr. Franklin, which occupies four pages, and which Mr. D. professes to give in the words of Dr. F., describes his attempts to establish a communication with the people of the earth by means of sounds spiritually produced; in which, after trying Germany and some places in the United States, he succeeded best in Western New York. This communication bears within itself no intrinsic evidence of authenticity. A very moderate power of imagination could fabricate the whole; and many honest, though imaginative clairvoyants have made communications equally as extensive and systematic, which were purely fictitious. If there were any facts in the statement, of a decisive character, some reliance might be placed upon it; or, if there were anything in it peculiarly charac teristic of Dr. Franklin, it would have a much stronger claim upon our confidence; but the whole narrative, although purporting to be in the exact words of Dr. Franklin, is in the exact style and manner of Mr. Davis. So that the utmost our charity could do, would be, to suppose that Dr. Franklin impressed the mind of Mr. Davis, and that Mr. Davis clothed the ideas in his own language; but this, he does not pretend, as he claims to have given the Doctor's identical words.

It is, with regret, that I find myself compelled to speak thus of this volume. I fully believe that the true philosopher should recognize all things as possible, and hope all good things to be true; but, knowing from the very laws of nature and the constitution of the human brain, that spiritualities and imaginations are very liable to be confounded, intertwined and intermingled, it becomes our duty to guard carefully against the perversion and confusion in science which have existed in all past times, and which must be continually recurring and misleading us, if we yield the control of our judg ments to the spirit of enthusiasm, credulity, and good-natured hope.

The writings of Mr. Davis are calculated to elicit the severest denunciations of orthodox bigotry, unless, indeed, it be deemed wiser by the opponents of clairvoyant suggestions to let them rest unnoticed. It would, therefore, give me much pleasure to recog nize and proclaim the merits which belong to his effusions; and it is, with a feeling of disappointment, that I lay down this volume, which impresses me as an imaginative and ephemeral production, calculated, like most of our light literature, to exert a pleasant and refreshing influence with a few, for a time, but not to hold a permanent place in the public mind.

ART. IV. DR. HARLOW'S CASE OF RECOVERY FROM THE PASSAGE OF AN IRON BAR THROUGH THE HEAD.

BY HENRY J. BIGELOW, M. D.,

Professor of Surgery in Harvard University. (With a Plate).

THE following case, perhaps unparalleled in the annals of surgery, and of which some interesting details have already been published, occurred in the practice of Dr. J. M. Harlow, of Cavendish, Vermont.

The accident occurred upon the line of the Rutland and Burlington Railroad, on the 13th of September, 1848. The subject of it, Phineas P. Gage, is of middle stature, twenty-five years of age, shrewd and intelligent. According to his own statement, he was charging with powder a hole drilled in a rock, for the purpose of blasting. It appears that it is customary in filling the hole to cover the powder with sand. In this case, the charge having been adjusted, Mr. Gage directed his assistant to pour in the sand; and at the interval of a few seconds, his head being averted, and supposing the sand to have been properly placed, he dropped the head of the iron as usual, upon the charge, to consolidate or "tamp it in." The assistant had failed to obey the order, and the iron striking fire upon the rock; the uncovered powder was ignited and the explosion took place. Mr. Gage was, at this time, standing above the hole, leaning orward, with his face slightly averted; and the bar of iron was projected directly upwards in a line of its axis, passing completely through his head and high into the air. The wound thus received, and which is more fully described in the sequel, was oblique, traversing the cranium in a straight line from the angle of the lower jaw on one side to the center of the frontal bone above, near the sagittal suture, where the missile emerged; and the iron thus forcibly thrown into the air was picked up at a distance of some rods from the patient, smeared with brains and blood.

From this extraordinary lesion, the patient has quite recovered in his faculties of body and mind, with the loss only of the sight of the injured eye.

The iron which thus traversed the skull weighs thirteen and a quarter pounds. It is three feet seven inches in length, and one and a quarter inches in diameter. The end which entered first is pointed; the taper being seven inches long, and the diameter of the point one quarter of an inch; circumstances to which the patient perhaps owes his life. The iron is unlike any other, and was made by a neighboring blacksmith to please the fancy of the owner.

Dr. Harlow, in the graphic account above alluded to, states that "immediately after the explosion the patient was thrown upon his back, and gave a few convulsive motions of the extremities, but

spoke in a few minutes. His men (with whom he was a great favorite) took him in their arms and carried him to the road, only a few rods distant, and sat him into an ox cart, in which he rode, sitting erect, full three quarters of a mile, to the hotel of Mr. Joseph Adams, in this village. He got out of the cart himself, and with a little assistance walked up a long flight of stairs, into the hall, where he was dressed."

Dr. Williams first saw the patient, and makes the following statement in relation to the circumstances:

"Northfield, Vermont, Dec. 4, 1849. "DR. BIGELOW: Dear Sir-Dr. Harlow having requested me to transmit to you a description of the appearance of Mr. Gage at the time I first saw him after the acc:dent, which happened to him in September, 1848, I now hasten to do so with plea

sure.

"Dr. Harlow being absent at the time of the accident, I was sent for, and was the first physician who saw Mr. G., some twenty-five or thirty minutes after he received the injury; he at that time was sitting in a chair upon the piazza of Mr. Adam's botel, in Cavendish. When I drove up, he said, 'Doctor, here is business enough for you.' I first noticed the wound upon the head before I alighted from my carriage, the pulsations of the brain being very distinct; there was also an appearance which, before I examined the head, I could not account for: the top of the head appeared somewhat like an inverted funnel; this was owing, I discovered, to the bone being fractured about the opening for a distance of about two inches in every direction. I ought to have mentioned above that the opening through the skull and integuments was not far from one and a half inches in diameter; the edges of this opening were everted, and the whole wound appeared as if some wedge-shaped body had passed from below upward. Mr. Gage, during the time I was examining this wound, was relating the manner in which he was injured to the bystanders, be talked so rationally and was so willing to answer questions, that I directed my inquiries to him in preference to the men who were with him at the time of the accident, and who were standing about at this time. Mr. G. then related to me some of the circumstances, as he has since done; and I can safely say that neither at that time nor on any subsequent occasion, save once, did I consider him to be other than perfectly rational. The one time to which I allude was about a fortnight after the accident, and then he persisted in calling me John Kirwin; yet he answered all my questions correctly.

"I did not believe Mr. Gage's statement at that time, but thought he was deceived; I asked him where the bar entered, and he pointed to the wound on his neck, which I had not before discovered; this was a slit running from the angle of the jaw forward about one and a half inches; it was very much stretched laterally, and was discolored by powder and iron rust, or at least appeared so. Mr. Gage persisted in saying that the bar went through his head: an Irishman standing by said, "Sure it was so, sir; for the bar is lying in the road below, all blood and brains.' The man also said he would have brought it up with him, but he thought there would be an inquest, and it would not do.

"About this time, Mr. G. got up and vomited a large quantity of blood, together with some of his food; the effort of vomiting pressed out about half a tea-cupfull of the brain, which fell upon the floor, together with the blood, which was forced out at the same time. The left eye appeared more dull and glassy than the right. Mr. G. said he could merely distinguish light with it.

"Soon after Dr. Harlow arrived, Mr. Gage walked up stairs, with little or no assistance, and laid down upon a bed, when Dr. H. made a thorough examination of the wounds, passing the whole length of his forefinger into the superior opening without difficulty; and my impression is that he did the same with the inferior one, but of that I am not absolutely certain: after this we proceeded to dress the wounds in the manner described by Dr. H. in the Journal. During the time occupied in dressing, Mr. G. vomited two or three times fully as freely as before. All of this time Mr. G. was perfectly conscious, answering all questions, and calling his friends by name as they came into the room.