From the FOREWARE:
To the Reader:
The volume, shortly to be published, and to which the ensuing pages are designed to serve the purpose of stepping-stone or forecast, has been compiled for the purpose of placing before the public the experiences of thirty-five full years of my life as a biologist and physiological chemist, devoted to the sifting and solution of vital problems of health and eugenics and in the practice of the resultant knowledge of the laws of life discovered in the course of my research.
I would beseech you, in your own vital interest, to peruse these pages thoughtfully and with an open mind. There are throughout America already, thousands of steadfast disciples who are daily reaping the benefits of the teachings contained therein; and I would that you also may be added to that goodly multitude, to enjoy together with them the best advantages emanating from systematic study along the most advanced lines of modern thought and science. The facts are correlated and simply expressed with the earnest desire to bring within the scope of the layman the good that may accrue. It is, however, not for the laymen alone that this work is undertaken, but for unprofessional and professional alike, be he medical student or practitioner or other interested person; for to each and all I present herein the best that a lifetime of research has enabled me to wring from nature's secret store for the betterment and conservation of human life and the help of human kind.
In the development of my movement I have formulated a system under which all may participate in the benefits of my message, though possibly prevented by circumstances in some cases from coming within direct personal contact with myself.
From the INTRODUCTION:
Hessiod, in his celebrated distribution of mankind, divides the species into three orders of intellect.
"The first place," says he, "belongs to him who can, by his own powers, discern what is fit and right, and penetrate to the remoter motives of action.
"The second place is claimed by him who is willing to hear instruction and can perceive right and wrong when they are shown to him by another;ùbut he who hath neither acuteness nor docilityùwho can neither find the way by himself, nor will be led by others, is a wretch without use or value."
"You are seeking truth," quoth Adalbert von Chamisso, "Remember that the world clings more firmly to superstition than to faith,"ùor, to borrow expression from an equally inspired source,ùremember that perverse humanity rarely fails to favour, rather, what Shakespeare terms "The seeming truth which cunning times put on to entrap the wisest."
Courageous, then, must be the knight who sets his lance in rest to tilt against the windmills of the world.
Nevertheless, although the truth is still banned as "heterodox" by common consentùor tacit connivanceùan attitude patent to commercial instincts in view of the cataclysm which must naturally ensue, with deadly results to the vested interests of orthodoxy, so soon as the long-trusted barriers of plausible and pretentious mystery and importance shall be swept away by the rising tide of popular indignation. When the masses become educated to discriminate between truth and falsehood and thus shall come into their rights, then and not till then, will the dawn of physical salvation break.
Still, I maintain, there are, and have been all along the way, eminent medical men of high intelligence, who, unlike the drones of the medical hive, have dared to think for themselves and have even dared to speak their thoughts.
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