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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



One of the most remarkable religious 

 movements of the nineteenth century 

 was that inaugurated by Joseph Smith, 

 Jr., from 1820 to 1830. The announce- 

 ment of the finding of a set of golden 

 plates hidden in a hill in New York 

 state and revealed to the prophet ot 

 the Almighty; said plates when inter- 

 preted by the prophet proving to be 

 the history of the lost ten tribes of 

 Israel, their journeying to America, 

 their identification with the Indians, 

 their further trials and tribulations, 

 and their ultimate salvation and re- 

 construction in the Church of the Lat- 

 ter Day Saints, this is indeed a suffi- 

 ciently fantastic story. Mr. I. W. 

 Riley devotes a volume (Dodd, Mead 

 & Co.) to an analysis of the charac- 

 ter of the founder of this sect. His in- 

 terest is not in what the man did and 

 the ultimate consequences of his estab- 

 lishment of a peculiar sect, but in the 

 motives and impulses that led to the 

 doing of it and to its successful prop- 

 agandum. The study is psychological; 

 and in the abnormal mentality of the 

 founder Mr. Riley finds the clue to 

 his actions. The tale is by no means 

 complete, but the author has been most 

 diligent in his search; and circumstan- 

 tial evidence and arguments by analogy 



reach a high degree of probability. As 

 a young man, Smith gave evidence of 

 epileptic attacks; he was given to vis- 

 ions and was absorbed in crass forms of 

 religious devotion; the 'Book of Mor- 

 mons' was dictated while the author 

 was in a semi-hypnotic condition self- 

 induced, and directing his thoughts to 

 the conviction of his own inspiration; 

 his first converts were themselves cred- 

 ulous and suggestible, and the testi- 

 mony of the witnesses to the vision of 

 the plates was probably the result of 

 a hypnotic suggestion. In brief, a study 

 of abnormal psychological states con- 

 vinces the author that Joseph Smith 

 was a neurotic degenerate, with an an- 

 cestry of like temperament, and that 

 his revelations were the riotous imag- 

 inings of his automatic imagination, 

 exhibiting the kind of shrewdness and 

 adaptation to existing conditions often 

 to be found in mental products of such 

 origin. The cumulative evidence for 

 this view can be appreciated only by a 

 direct reading of the book; it forms an 

 interesting example of the application 

 of modern psychological conceptions to 

 the comprehension of a most unusual 

 factor in the religious history of this 

 country. 



