CRIMES AND CRIMINALS: HOW TO TREAT THEM. 69 
by destroying what is poisonous, or it may — and generally is — something that 
enables the economy of nature to remodel or re-elaborate the food, in a way that 
will not only enable it to be not poisonous, but it shall contribute to the tissues 
what was intended. These latter remedies are called alteratives, eliminators, 
nutrients, etc. 
Nutrition is the taking up from the nutritive current, material that is fully 
prepared to, and does take on, and give forth vital manifestations. It is always 
made up of substances that are chemically or physiologically like the tissues of 
organs it is destined to build up and take the place of. In this way the tissues 
of the body are maintained in a state of health, from month to month, and from 
year to year ; worn out parts being replaced by tissue made up of similar com- 
pounds to that that has been worn out. But certain kinds of food when given 
for a long time, will produce marked changes in the bulk of, and relative propor- 
tion of the tissues. This will not be so marked in an individual, as in large masses 
of people, as for instance the beef-eating Englishman and the rice-eating Chinese; 
or on the wine-drinking Frenchman, and the beer-drinking German. It does not 
alter the argument to say that the climatic or atmospheric conditions have com- 
pelled certain people to live as they do. That there are most important differ- 
ences in races that at a comparatively recent period were identical, is beyond a 
doubt, and that food and feeding have contributed largely to those conditions is 
also undoubtedly true. Shakespeare makes Cassius say. 
" Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed, 
That he is grown so great." 
Feeding then, perhaps more than any other physical factor changes the phys- 
ical form ; promoting not only growth, but development. 
But a new factor now comes into the field to dispute for pre-eminence in 
modification of the physical nature. It is not the albumen or hydrocarbons, 
modified by any material of a medicinal nature, alterative, eliminative or nutrient. 
It comes not through the blood current nor by the process of digestion and 
assimilation. It is not climatic or atmospheric. It is not weighed by grains or 
pounds. It is mental impressions through the physical and on the moral nature. 
We often — nay, are constantly — in the habit of under-valuing these, though 
they have been known, and acted on by men of the world for more than four thou- 
sand years. Jacob, in order to defraud his father-in-law of his share of the increase 
of the flock, had recourse to mental impressions on his herds, and as the narrative 
tells us, with remarkable success, the increase being "ring, streaked and speck- 
led." But to the human race again. 
I find in that same history just quoted from, another most marvelous story, 
and which to day attests the truth of what I am trying to prove. It is the story 
of Ishmael. 
Let us for a moment read the history given of him, and in order to fully 
comprehend it we must begin with his mother. In the first place then, she was 
a slave, she was an African, and she was a woman. The wrongs of slavery are 
