Reprint from the Stoneham Independent Dec. 29, 1894. 
The Situation of the Tem- 
perance Problem. 
one power plan implies that medicine is 
passive, that it has no active principle, 
that it does not act, and that it is im- 
possible to supply a supplementary active 
principle, and only possible to guide the 
involuntary active vital principle. 
Consequently, medicine is useful not 
from a fact of existing active principle, 
but useful as a means for the presenting 
of a contact cause, a material presence, 
that will be a cause for the involuntary 
active vital principle to act differently. 
Thus medicine becomes useful as a means 
for the guiding of the involuntary active 
vital principle, rather than a supplied 
agency of active medical principle. 
Notwithstanding that the alleged active 
medical principle is wholly an imaginary 
agency, tons of literature have been 
created to explain the function of the 
active medical principle, while with the 
agency of active vital principle, medical 
literature fails to define even the differ 
ence between the several ultimate active 
vital properties, fails to explain even what 
constitutes an ultimate active vital proper- 
ty, confessing that “It is easy to per- 
ceive how impossible it is in the present 
state ot science to come to any positive 
conclusion in regard to the nature of the 
vital force.” 
It is not recognized in the science of 
biology, that the active vital principle 
is the only active principle that acts to 
produce all the varied phenomena of 
human life. 
But how does this apply to the temper- 
ance problem? Viz:—the belief in the 
doctrine as taught in the schools, that' a 
supplementary active principle, existing 
in abundance in alcoholic spirit, may act 
to help nature to do something the vital 
force cannot do under the circumstances, 
constitutes the great educational influ- 
ence that persuades to the drinking of 
alcoholic spirit. 
Thus the three power plan of alleged 
biological science teaches the require- 
ment of the active medical principle of 
alcoholic spirit, to supplement and aid 
the function of the vital energies. And 
the belief in such a medical agency has 
made alcoholic spirit a household remedy 
fur debility in a large majority of the 
homes of our cultured people. 
The belief in such an agency as the al- 
leged active medical principle is apparent- 
ly accepted with as much assurance as a 
belief in the force of gravitation. It is 
presumed to be an established fundament- 
al principle of nature, while it is only to 
be tolerated for a period,and like the ideal 
revolution of the sun around the earth, 
will become banished from the mind 
when the function of vital force is under- 
stood. 
It should be remembered, however, 
that the three power plan of biological 
science, is not an outgrowth of modern 
science, but an ideal creation of nearly 
two thousand years ago, and so compli- 
cated with appearances not understood 
and confessed inability to comprehend 
the nature and functions of the vital 
forces, that it has been perpetuated to 
our day, and ever remained as an im- 
movable opaqueness of the ideal function, 
obscuring the mental vision. 
Not only is the three power plan detri- 
mental to the temperance cause, but it 
necessitates the department of medical 
practice to be predicated on historical ex- 
periment, in place of a comprehension of 
the fundamental principles of the opera- 
tive forces of nature. 
It is a doctrinal plan that precludes a 
comprehension of the nature, method 
and laws of that agency, which acts to 
produce disease, and also the correct in- 
terpretation of the utility of medicinal 
appliance. 
It is a department of alleged nature 
that the cultured mind cannot afford to 
ignore, existing like the accepted ancient 
plan of astronomy, as an abnormality of 
thought detrimental to a comprehension 
of the most beneficial department of 
science, created in the interests of an en- 
lightened people 
Thus it becomes unmistakably evident 
that our temperance workers are strug- 
gling in various ways to overcome the in- 
fluences of this erroneous education, with- 
out denying the correctness of the doc- 
trine, that an effort is b.ing made to 
establish a public sentiment that will sup- 
port legislative enactments ; while this er- 
roneous plan of human life science, is 
continually creating a detrimental public 
sentiment, from an accepted authority 
that remains unquestioned. In fact the 
unprofitable drama is being daily enacted 
of trying to suppress the consequences of 
an erroneous education by legislative 
coercion. It required more than one 
hundred years to eliminate the erroneous 
ideal plan of astronomical science, but 
that plan finally passed into history as an 
ideal delusion, 
And the three power plan, for the pro- 
duction of human life phenomena, as 
the basis of alleged biological science, 
will also pass into history as a far more 
serious intellectual delusion, when the 
one power plan is considered from the 
basis of the functions of the active vital 
principle, when nature’s evidence is 
weighed and sought to be verified. 
There are a thousand problems in 
medical science not possible to explain 
from the basis of the three power plan, 
while the one power plan of thought may 
explain them all, and elevate the science 
of biology to a level with other depart- 
ments of established natural science. 
BY W. K. DUNHAM, M. D. 
The present custom of drinking alco- 
holic spirit and consequent infliction of 
intemperance which has been thrust upon 
all civilized nations, is the legitimate re- 
sult of false doctrines, taught and accept- 
ed of biological science. 
In illustration, like the ancient Ptole- 
maic system of astronomy; the science 
of human life affairs is taught from the 
basis of a wrong ideal plan of operative 
principles. Life phenomena as presented 
in the conditions ot health, disease and 
from medicinal relations; is alleged to be 
produced by the operation of three dis- 
tinct kinds of invisible active principles. 
It is taught that there exists in associa- 
tion with the cause of disease, some kind 
of active principle that acts to produce 
disease; and that in association with ma- 
terial medicine, there exists an active 
principle, called the “active medical 
principal,” that acts to produce medicinal 
effects. 
Thus our schools teach a three power 
plan, for the operative science of biology, 
viz: the active vital principle, the active 
principle associated with the cause of dis- 
ease, and - the alleged active medical 
principle. 
This plan, thus outlined, is apparently 
as acceptable today, as was the ancient 
Ptolemaic plan of astronomy, in its best 
days of satisfactory intellectual pride. 
At the same time as an intellectual 
problem, it is equally as great a delusion, 
while practically applied it has been the 
slayer of millions of human lives. 
As a matter of fact however, nature’s 
plan of the operative science of biology is 
a one power plan A one kind of invisi- 
ble active principle, the active vital princi- 
ple alone, that acts to produce the con- 
ditions of health, disease and medicinal 
results. 
Thus it is implied in the science of the 
one power plan, that the cause of disease 
is passive; that the cause is obnoxious 
material in the wrong place, and like a 
bowlder on a railroad track as the cause 
of an accident, the cause is passive yet in 
the pathway as a disturber of the normal 
functions of the active vital principle. 
Thus we may say that abnormal, or 
pathological vital action, constitutes and 
is, active disease. 
The doctrine of the three power plan 
implies that an active medical principle 
may be supplied the human organism, 
that can act as an agency to help the ac- 
tive vital principle in life affairs ; while the 
Stoneham, Mass. 
The foregoing article presents the temperance problem in an entire new light, and it becomes evident that the human 
mind is approaching the dawn of new discoveries in the department of organic nature. 
And it also appears that the intellect of this generation is struggling with problems in medical science under similar 
disadvantages that attended the development of astronomical science by the ancient mind. That is, the true plan of biologi- 
cal science has not been discovered, and the operative agency called vital force constituting the most important department ot 
nature, remains an acknowledged unsolved problem. 
The writer of the above article has prepared a volume entitled, “The Science of Vital Force,” in which is presented a 
revolutionary plan of biological science, as much unlike the doctrines now taught in the schools, as the modern differs from the 
ancient plan of astronomical science. And what is far more important, the author seems to have presented sufficient testimony 
of nature for its support. 
The book is published by Damrell & Upham, Old Corner Book Store, Boston, Mass. Price $1.00; by mail $1.10.